prompt stringlengths 20 5.8k | chosen_story stringlengths 226 10k | rejected_story stringlengths 227 9.43k | chosen_timestamp timestamp[ns]date 2012-07-26 17:01:55 2022-12-31 14:34:19 | rejected_timestamp timestamp[ns]date 2012-07-26 14:23:36 2022-12-31 12:20:41 | chosen_upvotes int64 14 23.1k | rejected_upvotes int64 10 4.26k |
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[WP]You have a security monitor in your bedroom so you turn it on to check the house before bed.To your surprise you see a monster crawling up your stairway.All of a sudden the monster slips and falls back down the stairs. You can hear it faintly crying.You find yourself calling out to it “You ok?”
First writing prompt. Hope this wasn’t done before
Edit: wow! You guys are great! I’m really enjoying these stories! Amazing job | „You ok?“
„Yeah I am fine… Urgh… who am I kidding? No, I am not fine.”
*What do?* He sat there for a minute, pondering. When he got up he grabbed the baseball bat. Just in case. He only dared to poke the head around the corner. There it was. Sitting at the base of his stairs. All sunken in. Like a pile of misery.
“I am sorry, man. I did want to give you the whole program, I swear. Was gonna give ya the ol’ 350b, you know. Sneaking up, creakin’ floors, floatin’ shadows…. But I don’t have it in me tonight. I just… just can’t,” said the sad pile.
“Uhm… Don’t worry… next time then! Maybe.”
The purple puddle moved and he gripped the bat tighter. Slowly the miserable pile unfolded. Tentacles uncoiled, three yellow watery eyes looked at him. Pointy teeth jabbed out from under a downward turned mouth.
“Again, I am sorry, man. I will go back and have somebody else do the job. I probably should have stayed home…”
*Another one?* “W-wait…” He said not really knowing why. The thought of *somebody else* just wasn’t appealing. “What’s wrong?”
Thee eyes looked at him. Searching. He tried to look reassuring. Hiding the bat as well as he could.
“Nothing, man. It’s just… urgh… it’s… Clare has left me. She just packed the kids and left… She just…. Left.” Sobbing. A tentacle wrapped around the yellow eyes. *Sniff Sniff*.
“Oh hey! Uhm… that must be tough… I am sorry, man.” He was confused. And scared.
“Oh ah! I am sorry, man! It is so un-monster like to cry in front of a client! I am sorry! Shouldn’t have said anything. Shouldn’t have come to work. It’s just so hard, man. So hard…”
“Uhm… you wanna talk about it? Have a beer?”
*Sniff sniff* “Would you do that for me?”
“Sure! Gotta help a man in need, ya know,” he had no better idea. The poor thing seemed devastated.
Not 10 minutes later, her sat on his couch next to a purple, slimy, sobbing monster, whose wife had left him the day the before for his best friend. She had even taken the dog. How did he end up here? | The sound of bottles clanking around Geoff woke him up.
"Goddamn it, Geoff. Not again... Jesus.. ," Geoff mumbled to himself.
The room was spinning around him and the bones that were unfortunate enough to touch the floor screamed at him. He mustered up strength and pushed up against the floor. Not a hint of warmth remained on the concrete floor, almost as if it never stole his warmth. With the push, he poised to stand up, but instead he collapsed back onto the floor. He could not feel his legs. He realized forgot about that. Again. A wave of despair washed over him. Again.
At the bottom of the stairs, he laid shivering and aching. Every regrets, realizations, and reverie thickened the fog around him. He laid paralyzed. After a while, however, he found the final beacon of light within him: upstairs, in a warm bedroom with fluffy bed, there was Sarah.
He finally mustered up enough strength. He began by grasping the edge of the next stair and started to pull himself up, stair by stair. The muscles squealed at him to stop.
"Stop trying," the mind whispered as well. "It will be much easier if you stop."
"Shut up," he muttered to himself as he pictured Sarah, smiling at him while snuggling in the bed. Sarah. My dear love. He was almost there. He was so close. However, his body failed him yet again. He cried out in agony as he rolled down the stairs.
A warm light filled the cold dark basement as the door above the stairway creaked open. A young girl appeared.
"You OK?" the girl asked.
"Sarah!" Geoff cried out, "I am sorry my love, I am sorry, forgive me!"
Sarah coldly glared at him.
"You seem OK. Good. You'd better not die soon. You monster."
Sarah slammed the door shut.
| 2018-02-05T02:54:36 | 2018-02-05T01:32:29 | 64 | 40 |
[WP] Immortal monsters of legend have returned after lying dormant for thousands of years. However, the legends were made before guns were a thing, and the "immortal" thing was kind of overblown. | The problem with ancient languages is that many words don't really translate well into modern language. In some cases there's just no modern word that fits, or in some cases there may be several potential translations, all with slightly different meanings. Aside from that, there's the nuance of the word given the rest of a sentence.
Nowadays, computers can make pretty short work of many old works. Hell, a modern phone and can do in seconds what a supercomputer would take days or years to accomplish. Even so, the nuance of meaning is best left up to experts. Take for example the ancient scrolls found in a watertight chest at the bottom of a deep chasm in the pacific ocean. Nobody knows how they got there, the age predates known human civilisation - but the translations speak of a race of terrible immortals that will race again a year after the chest is found. All it took was an app install and about 15 minutes to get the message, but figuring out the deeper meaning took longer.
​
At first, people scoffed, and rightly so. After all, this sort of thing had come up before and it always turned out to be some sort of hoax or publicity for the next upcoming monster movie. Still, governments seemed to think it was legit, and top people worked day and night to figure out just what it meant. Still, we didn't really know 100% until the first deep ones emerged.
​
Don't get me wrong, the deep ones were pretty serious business. From ones the size of a large dog (but with claws, tentacles, and teeth that could cut through steel), to leviathans that dwarfed an aircraft carrier, these things were scary as fuck. A lot of people died early on. Millions.
​
But then, mankind had people too spare. Too many people, really. And we'd already lost millions to a resurgeance of old diseases (thanks you anti-vax pricks), rapid climate change causing global overheating (fuck you deniers), crop failure due to loss of pollinators (monsanto, you sons of bitches) and just general overpopulation with dwindling food stocks. That last one was the kicker, really, and probably what turned a fearsome enemy into our greatest resource.
​
You see, the word immortal can have a few different meanings. I can mean somethat that doesn't age or naturally degrade/decade. It can mean something that cannot be killed. In some cases it's been a catch-call for omnipotent - or all-powerful - a being so great that it can't be hurt.
​
For the deep ones, it meant that they were hard to hurt. Really, really hard to hurt for the big ones. They also didn't appear to age. The last little tidbit was that they regenerated. In fact, when we finally did manage to blow or chop some of the ugly SOB's up, we discovered that two large pieces of deep one would quickly regenerate into two new deep ones. Kind of like an earthworm, but again the wormy bits were more like razor-bladed tentacles.
​
So everyone thought we were fucked. Yeah we could chop them up or blow them up - thanks to some fancy new weapons tech from the Americans, which got through the outer "shells" - but doing so just made more of the toothy noodly bastards.
​
Then the Russians came up with something that could neutralize the regenerative properties of the bastards.
​
But it was the Japanese, oh those crazy wonderful Japanese, who made the best discovery. We're not sure HOW they made the discovery. There are plenty of rumours of course. Some say that when the Americans blew a leviathan to bits, a few chunks landed in a Japanese soldier's rations. Other say the guy just got so hungry and chowed down on one of the deep ones' wounded foot soldiers. Other less savoury rumours involve a culture that still had an odd and slightly perverted obsession with tentacles, but we'll skip that. Anyhow, you get where this is going, probably. The deep ones were well armored on the outside, but inside they were vulnerable, and... delicious. Combine that with their ability to quickly regenerate, and after we finished blowing up the more dangerous ones the world went from fighting to farming.
​
That's right. The deep ones saved the world. Your average dog-sized deep-one could be chopped in half, with one half going back into a refrigerated tank and the other half into the pot for dinner. By the next day, the half in the tank would have grown back to full-size. Deep in the trenches we also found new plant-life with similar regenerative properties, probably what had supported the deep-ones throughout their semi-hibernation. Oh, and did I mention the part where "immortal" can also mean "never-aging". Yup, not only did the bastards grow back quickly, but they were pretty much always fresh. Better than chicken!
​
Nowadays we use genetically modified deep ones as food-sources for our deep-space missions. After all, despite having a stable food-source, earth was still pretty crowded and there was a universe to explore. More scrolls were found citing the origin of the deep-ones as being far from this world, so now we're on a mission to find a new rock to settle on.
​
Maybe the descendants of the deep-ones will be more friendly than the a-holes left on Earth. If not, then we'll at least find out if they come in a different flavour than their ancestors.
​
Edits: Spelling and typos | “Now Mortals! I, The lost King of Babylon Kuzaamanaga the Immortal, have risen from my unearthly tomb to once again rule the kingdoms of gods and See a thousand years of tyranny!”
“Well That’s all mighty fine there, you filthy Arab. But how bout you you drop the sword and staff and come with me so we can sort you out.” A very american soldier said. He stood in front of his squad who had been tasked in retrieving the lost king. The legends had foretold of him coming back and recently scholars had converted the time to show the year he would come. Having heard legends of his power, the world had deemed it an international crisis waiting to happen.
Cut to now. Unsurprisingly, the US army had encroached on Arabic land to “save” the world as they continued to say. Now a single squad of marines met the the Immortal king, hoping to end the situation before a war started against the immortal.
“You dare speak to me, ilk? I don’t understand the tribal patterns you wear, but they are shoddy compared the robes I will wear once my conquest is finished!”
“Yeah? Well how bout you saunter over to us so we can start working on your duds right away, majesty?”
“What are these… duds?” The King sneered.
“You know. Pants. A shirt. Perhaps some underwear?”
“Do not speak nonsense to me, mortal”
“Hey, you’re the one who can speak English but doesn’t know what pants are.”
“I know all the tongues of my people. It is why i’m destined to rule.”
“Well could you at least take shower? One we have you, you’ll be provided a shower”
“Silence, Filth! You have spoken ill of me for the last time. Now face the immortal might of Kuzaamanaga!” With an outstretched arm, he used his staff to summon a dark force. Black mist sprung forth at the marines, consuming them in it’s murky soot.
“Ahahahaha! That will show-” The king paused as the smoke cleared. The marines stood, confused.
“Uh. Was that supposed to do something?”
“I Don’t understand. You should be dying in pain. Covered in boils!” The king shouted.
“What? Like the black plague? We probably evolved immunity to that. Considering how old it probably is”
“Why you! You have the gall to embrace immunity when the immortal gods stands before you”
“Listen. I've heard enough. Wanna just get into our Humvee and we can talk about it on the way back to base?”
“Kuzaamanaga does not accept favour. I will destroy you and all you love. For I am the lost king of Babylon, ageless and immune to disease. My skin is hard as Diamonds and My blood is acid for those lucky enough to spill it. I can cripple men with but a gaze. Now, worthy adversary, DIE!” The king rushed forward, covering ten of the twenty feet between him and the marine. The marine shot and the king collapsed.
Several hours passed. The king awoke and found himself strapped to a gurney. A figure with a white mask covering the lower half of his face and blue robes looked over him.
“Ah! Are you a demon? I cannot die! Send me back to the living demon. Have mercy!” HE king pleaded as he struggled feebly. The masked figure pressed down on the kings shoulders
“Relax, you’re not dead.”
“Then who are you?”
“I’m your doctor. I dressed your gun wound. For a thousands of years old guy, you sure can take a hit.” The doctor displayed his bloody robes and the bullet left on a tray.
“I thank you for saving me. As such, I wish to save you by informing you to take off your robes.”
“Oh? Dry spill leave you craving? Sorry buddy, I don’t swing like that.”
“What? No. My blood is potent acid. Quickly, before it burns you to the bone.”
“Sorry. You’re blood isn’t actually acidic. Where did you come up with that?”
“Oh… Well. i thought to be the case. No one had spilt my blood. My skin was Diamond. UNBREAKABLE.” The king shouted.
“Actually, we’ve broken diamond before. The gunshot wound seemed to do the job just fine, actually. Does explain why the stitches were so difficult.”
“Break diamonds? No. it can’t be true.”
“Yeah. Pretty simple”
“Well… No matter. No mortal can kill me!”
“Maybe lupus will.”
“What?”
“Yeah. turns out while you’re resistant to most diseases, it’s not all of them. Plus, viruses have evolved a lot since you entombed yourself. Without some help, you’d be dead in 2 months, tops.”
“Oh.”
“On the bright side. You don’t seem to age. So that’s cool i guess.”
“I feel very unimportant.”
“Yeah. I get that. Anyway. See you tomorrow.”
“Yeah. See you”. The doctor left quietly. The Immortal stayed awake that night. For the first time ever, he thought of death. | 2019-03-20T19:52:25 | 2019-03-20T19:36:22 | 396 | 129 |
[WP] Write the biggest asshole ever, then try to redeem him in the last sentence. | Joe shuffled his feet, pushing his slumped body against his wheelchair, slowly propelling it backwards to the front of the intersection. In his right hand, he limply held a sign written in mumbling sharpie, something about veteran, hungry, god bless. His right hand jingled a 7-11 Big Gulp, half full of coins.
"Gettin' pretty full," Joe thought to himself. "I'll go stash it after the next score."
As if on cue, a red Hyundai pulled up, the driver side window whirred down, and a delicate, manicured hand reached out, holding a five dollar bill.
"gableshya," Joe rasped as he put the fiver in his cup. "Jesus, what a fuckin' sucker," he silently thought to himself.
Joe wheeled himself out of the intersection and into the Popeye's parking lot nearby. He rolled up to a late model Accord parked in an inconspicuous corner and did a quick check to see if anyone was looking. He fumbled in his pockets for a second, and the Accord chirped and unlocked. Joe stood up and stretched, pressing his fists into his lower back before he opened the door and dumped his haul into a bucket behind the driver's seat.
"Hey!" a voice shouted off in the distance. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?"
Joe looked up, a lanky college aged kid was briskly walking towards him, holding a cell phone up at arms length.
"You're not even homeless!" the kid continued. "I have it on video! I'm going to tell the police."
"Leave me alone," Joe grunted at the kid.
"No! What are you even doing? Why are you taking people's money when you have a nice car?"
Joe slumped back into his wheelchair. "I have a disability"
"No you don't! I just saw you get out of your wheelchair. I'm posting this on youtube. You're screwed, man!"
"Screw you. Mind your damn business."
"How much did you take from people today? Huh? Why don't you just get a job?" The kid looked inside the car and saw the bucket. "Jesus! What is that, like, two hundred dollars?"
"Stop harassing me." Joe glared at the kid. "If people want to give me their change, that's their right."
"You don't even pay taxes on that money! I bet you aren't even a veteran!"
Joe's weathered face flinched almost imperceptibly.
"Whatever, I'm done with this shit." Joe said as he got up, packed up his wheelchair into the trunk, and got in the driver's seat, unfazed that it was all being captured on camera. As he drove off, the kid kept filming. After a few minutes, Joe grimaced at the thought of having to deal with the cops again. "Damn. Might have to relocate." he spat out at no one in particular.
Joe pulled into the motel parking lot. He sat in the car for a minute to collect his thoughts before grabbing his bucket of cash and going to his room.
"Three hundred forty five dollars and seventy six cents," Joe said to the empty room, proudly. "If there's suckers out there willing to throw their money away, at least they can throw it to me," he thought to himself.
Joe grabbed his checkbook, and started to fill out a new check. Joe almost felt like the words had formed a groove in the checkbook, but he still read aloud as he wrote, a habit to ensure there weren't mistakes.
"Pay to the order of National... Coalition... for... Homeless... Veterans... Three Hundred... Forty-Five... and Seventy-Six Cents" | Jim stood at the portside of his galleon, looking out on the still waters, watching for signs of landfall through the dense fog.
A breathless man ran up behind him. "Captain, it's me!" the voice said. "I've spotted land!"
Just as he had, the island made itself clear to the captain. "Land ahoy!" Jim shouted to the crew.
The crew scrambled to pull up the sails and lay down the anchor, and several rope meshes were tossed over the side, everyone clamoring to get down. The government had put the largest known bounty on his head, and Jim aimed to claim that bounty, but not just for monetary reasons.
It took the crew less than a day to scour the wooded island before finding him and the kidnapped children. They brought him into the clearing, his hands cuffed together behind his back. Jim smiled. "You have one of those faces that doesn't age a day, don't you?"
The young man grimaced, before spitting a large piece of phlegm in Jim's face.
Wiping it off, the older man smiled. "You know, I should be the one doing that to you," he said, raising his missing hand. "Especially what you did to me when we were young."
His wrist sat empty of the hand that usually filled the space in the sleeve.
"You did that to yourself!" the young man spat, as his hostages gathered around behind him, peering out from behind the trees.
"You know that's not true," Jim replied. "You brought me here. You took m-"
"You wanted to come! Remember!?" the young man recalled. "You had no one! No one!"
Jim stared blankly at him, waiting for him to finish. "I gave you friends! Family! You were going to kill yourself, hang yourself, remember!?" the young man reminded him. "I saved your life! And the first thing you did when you got here? You fed that...that stupid dinosaur of an animal! *You* did that"
The scared faces behind him never saw him like this -- so angry yet so helpless.
"You kidnapped me, just like you have with all of these kids," Jim reminded him. "What are they? 11? 12?"
The children's silence gave him pause. "Are they even *10*?" Jim feigned surprise. "Boy, have you stooped to a new low!"
"It's all money for you, isn't it?" the young man asked. "How much did they offer you?"
He received no reply. "Take Peter away," Jim said, waving his hand.
Peter never looked back to see the judging eyes that bore into the back of his head.
Jim followed the crew ushering the young man and the kids onto the boat. Before he got on, he re-attached a large hook to his stub and began climbing aboard. "Let's go," he said, with a wave of his hand.
From that day forward, people knew Jim as the man who caught the most wanted "criminal"; not by his name, but by his missing hand and that recognizable piece of metal that replaced it. | 2017-05-23T09:16:08 | 2017-05-23T08:15:38 | 329 | 104 |
[WP] You have a superpower where the harder a solid is the easier it is for you to break. Diamonds crumble to dust under the slightest touch but mashed potatoes are virtually unbreakable. | "HAHAHAHA" i couldn't help laugh. The police were everyhere. POP POP POP. three little plumes of dust roll off my chest as they fire their guns. The bullets crumble as they touch me. "There is no way they can stop me, I'm indestructible!" I think to myself as I begin to walk away. I kick a squad car for good measure, the hood collapses under my foot.
As i turned from the car I see a little boy in front of me. "Get out of here kid." I say waving my hand towards the sidewalk. "You could get hurt." He looked up at me defiantly. "Bad guys aren't allowed to get away." he said shakily, pointing a bright yellow toy gun at me.
"alright punk." I started to say but was cut off by by the *sprong* of the childs toy. A foam dart flew at me and struck me lightly on the knee. My knee exploded out behind me, as it it had just been struck by a .45
The pain was unreal, I looked up through confused tears at the child. " Bad guys aren't allowed to get away" he said again, *Sprong* went his toy. I saw the blue and orange dart heading right for my face. The pain from my knee keeps me from dodging. I feel my nose being ripped away by the soft rubber tip of the dart, then nothing. | At the beach. Turn to a friend, watch this shit. Start sprinting across the ocean. He's seen it before so he's looking at me like I'm a dumbass. I f o r g o t I h a d a c u t o n m y l e g. A fucking shark swims up toward me. I start to run, too late, the sharks teeth shatter on my leg. And now I'm in jail for accidental animal rights abuses for the 9th time. Granted I could pull the bars away and bullets can't harm me, but I'm no criminal. My friend bails me out, he tells me not to try that shit again. I laugh and pat him on the back. Fuck he exploded. Back in jail again, apparently they use the firing squad in this state, lucky me... | 2017-05-19T04:32:27 | 2017-05-19T02:41:45 | 84 | 27 |
[WP] When you die you are sent to purgatory, a room of doors where you can select your afterlife. There are all the commonly believed afterlifes, reincarnation, heaven and hell, even null. You open the dusty unused door. | Most people think that death is just a pitch black darkness. Some think its gold gates of heaven, some a fiery pits of hell. Some even think you can reincarnate as a fly or a slug.... they're all wrong.
I woke up in a grey room full of doors. Trust me, i went trought nearly all of them...
White with gold letters that i couldnt understand, the ones that were on fire and even some full metal futuristic ones that i still dont know what they were.
I must have spend at least hours thinking how should i proceed from now on, what exactly happened to me but i couldnt just go trough any of those doors.
,,You need to choose... ,"
,,Am i going mental or did i've just heard a voice in my head"
,,You need to choose, or you will stay here forever..."
Ugh, there's always a choice goddammit but i dont want any of the choices i see before me.
The voice in my head was annoying as hell. You think that when you're dead you will at least be left alone but nooooooooo.... there's always something.
He kept yapping and yapping about the choice and consequences of them, that i didnt even know when i've stood up and went for the old wooden doors covered in cobwebs.
When i've entered the room, something hit me in the back of my head and i lost conciousness.
.....
,,squeak, squeak, squeak"
I've woke up. Its cold and this wagon is very noisy.... Horses pulling it aint good either.
,,Oh look, you're finally awake!"
------- my first time so please go easy ^^ | Angelica brushes her hand against her jeans in anticipation of the dust against her skin. Biting her glossy pink lip, she pushes open the door to her afterlife.
She emerges from a rocky cave and finds herself on a wide mountaintop. A tall, muscular man with a discus turns mid-throw to face her, and his eyes bulge.
"You...a human?" he asks. "We haven't had one of you in centuries. We all thought you gave up our religion."
Angelica nods, and swings her long blonde hair over her shoulder. The man is handsome.
"I don't know about your religion, but I'm Angelica," she says, holding out a manicured hand for him to shake. "Who are you?"
"Hercules," he replies, smiling. "Welcome to Olympus."
Angelica shakes his hand and admires his adam's apple. She is happy with her decision! | 2020-07-31T09:41:25 | 2020-07-31T08:53:04 | 35 | 18 |
[WP]Death Eaters win The battle of Hogwarts killing all opposition and breaking a one thousand year old truce between muggles and wizards. Lord Voldemort must now face the full might of the United Kingdoms' military. | "*Imperio*!" Voldemort hissed at yet another officer, bending him to his will.
The muggles were growing desperate. They could not target an army that could teleport away. They could not fight when their own command chain was compromised by one single word. Every water reserve had been poisoned, no matter how well guarded. Civilian casualties numbered over eight million on the first day.
It all started when Harry came to Voldemort to die. It was as if people were expecting him to survive the killing curse once more... but he didn't. The moment that happened, all that was left was to secure his snake, and immortality would ensure his conquests.
Bullets ripped through his head... only to have his head reweave itself. Grenades shattered his body, only to have it reconstituted. He cackled at the growing desperation of his enemies. Bellatrix was torturing some poor sod. His screams were blood-curdling. He finally stood before the Prime Minister.
"*Imperio*!" he said unceremoniously. The Prime Minister's eyes lost their focus. He knelt and kissed the hem of Voldemort's robe.
Forty eight hours after the death of Harry Potter, the United Kingdom had fallen. In the next two days, the only muggles remaining were the military, poised for conquest. This is the story of World War Three, and how it all could have been avoided if one teen would have refused to die. | Lord Voldemort was triumphant at his defeat of Harry Potter. He alone walked to the edge of the mind charm zone to gloat at his truly epic victory.
No sooner had he crossed it when he saw a strange red light upon his forehead. He tried to touch it and it did not move. It did seem to jitter a bit, so Voldemort decided it was harmless.
Lord Voldemort wandered further away from the zone, and found himself amongst a group of muggles carrying strange devices of different sizes. He laughed and cast Avada Kedavra at the lead man. He crumpled to the ground. Suddenly his entire body was in pain. His corrupted blood leaked from dozens of holes. Lord Voldemort crumpled, dead.
| 2014-10-12T00:03:30 | 2014-10-12T00:00:12 | 40 | 17 |
[WP] The world's oldest, most powerful wizard has had enough of his life. After two thousand years of adventure and magic he desires normalcy. Today is his first day at work as a janitor for an office building. He's determined to fit in and not use his powers. How does it go? | *I could burn this man from time itself*, Mikrathrin thought, watching his new supervisor through lidded eyes. *A soul unwound. Easy as swatting a gnat from a book.*
"So what do we use when it's the glass, Mike?" Donald asked, using the kind of tone one usually reserved for small children and not, Mikrathrin reflected, mages with power enough to flay a continent.
"The blue stuff, Mr. Crist," Mikrathrin said in a soft voice.
"You got it, bud!" Donald said, plucking the appropriate bottle from the supply shelf and passing it to Mikrathrin. "Why don't you try it out on Conference Seven?"
"Can do."
Donald grinned at that, gave Mikrathrin a friendly slap on the shoulder, and left. The ancient mage watched him go, then stared at the blue bottle of cleaning solution in his hands. "It's what you wanted," he said to himself, to the voice in his heart pleading for him to raze the building and leave nothing but the immaculate windows of Conference Seven standing in the rubble.
"And where would that lead?" he asked aloud, gathering supplies from the room and adding them to his cleaning cart. "Another empire? More followers, more victims, more enemies?"
He fingered his employee badge, the grainy laminated photo of him in a janitor's jumpsuit seeming a little less droll each day. "At least this is new."
And so Mikrathrin cleaned the windows by hand, endured hollow praise from Mr. Crist, and continued his rounds, helping to put the accountants' offices in order and wondering when this life would start to feel rewarding.
A week passed, and Donald declared his training period complete, doing so with a deeply patronizing amount of pomp. There was even a certificate for it, still warm from the copier, and Mikrathrin was surprised to find all the words on it spelled correctly.
A month later, Mikrathrin's tireless, quiet efficiency had legitimately impressed Donald, to the point where the praise he bestowed actually felt genuine. That this brought the barest ounce of pleasure to Mikrahthrin was something that kept him awake long after he should have fallen asleep.
Three months down the road, and Mikrathrin finally agreed to accompany his co-workers to an all-hours bar. It was, like the rest of their lives, cheap, pointless, loud, and foul-smelling. It was also the best outing Mikrathrin could remember experiencing in three centuries. He joined his co-workers every time they asked after that, and once he started helping them win the trivia contests, those invitations became quite frequent, indeed.
A year, and Mikrathrin accepted the management position from Donald, who took a higher-paying job at another site. Mikrathrin hadn't wanted it - had been quite clear he'd never desired a leadership role - and was summarily told that was partly why he'd gotten it.
Two years, and Mikrathrin's division of the cleaning service was the most highly-rated in the company. His salary, unnecessary though it might have been, was no longer quite so pathetic, and his circle of friends held him in genuine regard. Part of him hated it - hated the pandering, miserable, future-less grind of it all, the directionless, repetitive mess of a life these peasants clutched at simply because it was all they knew - but after all this time, he'd come to realize part of him would always hate everything. Fact was, while he was not exactly happy, he was content, and though he was not quite sure how, this empty, unmotivated life left him more fulfilled than a thousand years of spellforged conquest.
Three years in, and Mikrathrin realized it wasn't the job, or the friends, or the accolades that had brought him peace - it was the expectations he'd placed on himself. He had gone into this hoping for a change of pace, a life away from mystic duels and the chatter of demons, and along the way, he'd sort of assumed it would all be for nothing.
That it had been for anything - even the slightest thing - was enough. He'd accomplished fantastic things in his long life, yet here, in a simple job of simple tasks carried out alongside simple minds, where even the smallest accomplishment could be heralded with cheers and drinks and photocopied certificates, everything seemed to count just a little more.
Thousands of years, the power of gods, and nothing in all of that had ever made Mikrathrin happier than a clean window. It would *never* be deeply rewarding or meaningful, and that, he was delighted to realize, was rather the point. | “Liiiiisten baby, ain’t no mountain high, ain’t no valley low, ain’t no river wiiiide enough baaaaby,” I lip-sang in delight, “if you neeeeeeed me caaalll!” The mop sloshed on my shoe. The turbid water reeked with the pungent stench of bleach and a varietal medley of chemicals. I began chanting a quick incantation to remedy the spill, but caught myself. *Ahh, no magic Xerl!* *You have leveraged those etheric energies to the pinnacle of human capability, and you have seen the wretched, abject pain you’ve caused. No good can come from magic. That was my vow!* I tsk’d myself for being so complacent, but only slightly. I mean really—it is my first day! I can’t be that rough on myself.
I could still feel the tempest coursing through my veins, trying to escape the dimensional confines to be released into our world. So many who tried to follow in my footsteps, both acolytes and foes, had begged me for my secrets—they would scream, and plead, “How do you control the magical currents with such ease?! What do I do to reach your level?”
My secret sauce: rhyming. I’ve seen others try to emulate my style of invocation, thinking it was but one of the factors that enabled my facility with the mystic, but they always lacked any sense of the verbiage. One must truly **rhyme**.
But those things are past me. Now, I mop. My name badge proudly bears my assumed identity: Bernard. I pronounce it ‘burr-nerd’ to be different. It may just be the way my brain processes language. Who knows. I reached down with a generic brand paper towel and began pointlessly trying to diffuse the chemicals and water from my camel colored jumpsuit. Pointless towels. They crumble and defy my will, only moments after connecting with the foul liquid. Blasted. Life without magic may be mildly more difficult than I had first anticipated.
Crack. Crack. Thud.
The noises startle my cleaning. I am on the night shift, and I am the only janitor. I should be here alone, and yet, my ears are notifying me that I am—in fact—not. I grunt as I set the mop back into the liquid and stroll down the corridor to find the offending noise maker. The front door was unhinged and laying splayed on the floor, as a fallen beast. A metallic apparatus was wired meticulously along the mechanical construct designed to detect illicit intrusions, and it seemed to have precluded the alarm from sounding. *Hmm*.
Three men walk into the room. They are dressed from the bottom up in a matte-black body suit, plates of some thick, resistive material coating the broad flat surfaces of their forms. Clips of chemical projectiles shrouded in metal alloys adorn their chests, complementing the slender forms of the mechanical projectors. Guns, I believe. I’d never learned much about them, save how to keep modern technology from harming me (laughably easy, to be quite honest). “We’re in,” grunted the lead man into his radio. I was still standing in the middle of the hall, barely 15 yards in front of them. They hadn’t noticed me, yet.
“Wills, you gather the equipment bags while Smith and I get to the security room, we are going to…” his voice trailed off. He was looking straight at me. His weapon leveled evenly with a cool, swift motion, “Who the fuck are you? Hands up.” I curled my fingers, and I took a two steps forward. The lead man eyed my badge as it caught the illumination. “Ah, George—the night janitor? I thought it was supposed to be Juan.” He looked back at the man I believed to be Wills. “You fuck. How’d we not know about this guy?” Wills shrugged.
| 2015-12-30T12:25:58 | 2015-12-30T12:15:49 | 90 | 14 |
[WP] When humanity went extinct another life-form rose to dominance on Earth. But it was not one anyone would have expected. Instead of chimpanzees, dolphins, dogs or even birds Earth is now dominated by sentient trees. | My starship hovered somewhere between the moon and the planet formerly known as Earth. We, the Caretakers, were unsure what the new sentient species had named it. After the humans had driven themselves extinct, ignoring warning after warning, a new and different species had risen. We had expected perhaps dolphins, or dogs, to come forward, but never trees.
Stepping into my planetary transport and closing my eyes, I waited for the shivery twist in the center of my gut that signified the shift from ship to surface. Soft sounds of birds and small animals surrounded me, as gentle light pressed against my eyelids. Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes, to find myself in the center of a giant forest. Trees larger than I'd ever seen before towered around me, creating an almost solid canopy of leaves.
Shifting my awareness inwards, I sent out a peaceful thought on every frequency I could think of. As most species that rose to sentience in the Second Era, the Trees would likely be telepathic. A sort of pinging sound, that was not actually audible echoed across a long disused frequency. It was a questioning sound, something that asked what I was, asked what I wanted, without using any words.
I sent a calm response, telling the Trees that I was just here to visit. All I wanted was to walk around the forest—if that was permitted—and see what had happened, how things were now. There was a strange silence at my words, but all around me, the Trees rustled, the branches moving in strange shapes. Then, again without words, they gave permission and a warning. Do not take from the Forest. Do not hurt the Forest. And do not bring the Fire to the Forest.
Acquiescing, I began my walk, marvelling at the forest that surrounded me. My people had been worried that such large creatures rising to sentience would threaten the galactic stage at some point. But it had been thousands of years, millions, and there had been no sign of anger or striving to get to the stars. The Trees had simply spread across the surface of the globe, only stopping at the oceans.
Around my feet, small animals darted, having lost the fear my arrival had caused. There was no strange acrid smell that I had come to associate with the planet during the long years humans had lived here. No, all around there was simply the smell of earth and green. I sent out a questioning thought, asking the Trees if they ever wanted to reach for the stars, to leave the planet. They sent back a simple question in return, a quiet one.
What are stars?
It was something I'd never questioned, that every race knew what the stars were; could see the heavenly bodies. And yet, the Trees had no eyes, had no way to know anything but their own star, the one formerly named Sun. Standing there, feeling them waiting for an answer, feeling the peace around me, I lied. I told them stars were nothing important, that it was not necessary for them to know. And they accepted the lie, these creatures who had never known anything but the truth they shared amongst their great network.
As I pressed the controller on my wrist and waited for the transport shift, I sighed. This place out of all the planets in all the galaxies was perhaps the best of us. They didn't want more, or less than they had. This world was finally, finally at peace. As I keyed their status as a protected planet into the computers I smiled. And with this designation, they would never again need to know about war or suffering.
They were, and would always be, at peace. | The voices of the United Nations talk amongst themselves; some filled with quiet panic, others with hushed anger and frustration, they're voices carrying over one another and filling the room before a man emerges from backstage. He walks across the stage to the forward-most podium, he faces the audience and the lights dim. The voices of the world's leaders and military grow quiet.
A moment of feedback from the microphone screeches while the man adjusts it to move it closer to his mouth.
He clear his throat.
"Hello everyone, many of you may know me- but in the case that you do not;
I'm famous Hollywood director, M. Night Shamalon.
You may know me from some of my famous films such as "The Sixth Sense" and The live action abdaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender."
I wish I was in front of you today to speak on behalf of my numerous blockbuster hits that have garnished me much international praise and multiple academy awards-"
The leaders of the free world shift uneasily in their seats and exchange glances while M. Night Shamalon continues to talk about his films,
such as "The Village" where a young women sets out from her thought to be colonial homestead to find that the actual time period was modern day,
and the one where some people are trapped in an elevator but there's an old woman-
whose also a demon.
"But that's not why I'm before you today" M. Night continues. "I'm here because I'm the aformentioned expert on the rising threat of biological terrorism commited by the new sentient autonomous "arbor-overlords.""
The world leaders exchange glances once again as this was certainly *not* what the growing threat of sentient trees was called.
M.Night: "So without further ago, I've prepared this documentary to prepare both you and each of your nations on how to prepare against the growing theat of the radicalizes tree terrorists."
A film begins playing on the projector. We see the title "The Happening"
A four-star general stands abbruptly from his seat pointing aggressively at M.Night.
"This isn't a documentary! This is a shitty movie where people are killed by pollen.
*The generals all start to murmur in concern*
"What's worse is you expected us to believe Mark Walberg was a scientist!"
M.Night turns to the general with a look of pure insult "And you didn't believe it was real!?"
"NO! of course not!" The general replies.
Mark Walberg steps from backstage with a lab coat, adjusting his large glasses.
M.Night: "Tell that to him!"
Before the general can respond a large sentient tree smashes through the wall of the UN building.
While the audience cowers under thier desks in panic and the dust from the now destroyed wall settles; Mark Walberg rips off the sleeves of his labcoat before yelling a newly coined slur for sentient trees and leaps onto it, tackling it out of the building. | 2022-08-27T07:03:58 | 2022-08-27T06:10:10 | 519 | 37 |
[WP] There is a special place in the after life, made for people who did "ok I guess". It is called Meh-ven.
Inspired by this askreddit thread.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4oajgp/if_there_were_a_cheaper_version_of_heaven_called/ | Greg hadn't really done anything in life. He had never really cared about homework or his health or anything other than playing video games at home. He had never particularly cared for any sort of social events, had never supported any causes.
Greg's life was pretty ok, he guessed. He'd died choking on a piece of carrot.
That was probably the most exciting that Greg's life ever got.
When Greg was asked, after the choking incident and after he had found that white light, how his life had been, he said:
"Okay, I guess."
That's how he found himself in Mehvean. It was okay, he guessed. He basically did the same things he did when he had been alive. He played video games and there wasn't really anything interesting on TV or anything cool to eat in the fridge. Day after day he just spent his day grinding, leveling up by killing the same monsters.
Greg wasn't even bored. It was okay, he guessed.
One day someone came and knocked on his door. Greg looked up because he rarely ever got visitors. When he went to open the door there was a girl in a sundress standing there.
"Hi, I'm Michelle from the outreach department. I was wondering if I could ask you to answer some survey questions about your time here today."
"Sure," Greg said. She came in and sat at his table. He offered her a glass of water that wasn't cold and wasn't hot. It just sort of was.
"Okay. Question one. Since entering Meaven have you spent any time reconsidering your actions on earth?"
"Not really," Greg shrugged.
"Do you yearn for something better?"
"Meh. I guess a change of game could be nice."
Michelle scribbled something on a piece of paper.
"And what do you think of Meavean? Do you have any suggestions for improvement?"
Greg looked around. "Nah. It's okay, I guess."
---
Thanks for reading. Subscribe to /r/Celsius232 if you want to. It's pretty okay, I guess. | I was standing in front of an open fridge. Industrial quality, built in. It would have been gorgeous if not for the fingerprints marring the stainless steel.
It was full. Fresh vegetables that looked as if they could have been made of wax; almost too smooth and shapely to be real. Meat and fish; not just hamburger, or chicken breast, like I had in my fridge back home; but halibut, and perfectly marbled prime rib, and pancetta. I had the ingredients for any of my favorite meals. I thought about making a calzone, crusty on the outside and stuffed with rich ricotta and salty black olives. I considered fish tacos topped with crisp cabbage slaw and a lime crema, and my mouth watered.
I had a million options, and a million ideas, but once I picked one, it just lost its appeal. I could be absolutely drooling over the thought of a meal, but as soon as I started to prepare it, it just didn't *sound* good.
Every once in a while, someone will walk by me, and I'll call out, hopefully, "Any ideas on dinner?"
"I don't care," they'll shrug.
It's annoying, but I guess it doesn't really matter. I'll think of something I want eventually. I've only been here for eight years, after all, and I have all of eternity. | 2016-06-16T01:41:34 | 2016-06-16T00:44:58 | 121 | 75 |
[WP] Humanity is the idiot savant of the galaxy. We're terrible at almost everything compared to every other race, but we surpass them in spades in one thing.
**DO NOT CHOOSE WARFARE**
It's a boring and overdone answer.
This is inspired by the book Year Zero, where humanity is laughably incompetent in most of our cultural endeavors, but there isn't a species alive no matter how old that is better than us at [X]. It's up to you what [X] is. Maybe we're the best cooks in the galaxy, maybe we're the best dancers, musicians, clowns, that's up to you!
**All I ask is that you do not pick warfare** | I went into archeology for the money, not for humanitarian reasons. Sure, I'd like to be the one to save the human race, I'd just like a beach house/ski resort on a designer world even more. The market value of digging in the dirt only goes up as the search for a working wormhole drive becomes more frantic. We've found plenty of fragments, but the tech is far too complicated to rebuild.
The people who made this stuff were geniuses. All of them. Besides custom planet factories, we've found teleport machines, a bed that records your dreams, sentient computers the size of a planet, and trees genetically built to grow and twist as you sing to them, whose petrified branches recorded at least a thousand years of song.
Even though the search for a way to leave the Milky Way is the most urgent reason we go digging, and more and more so as the population grows, there's still a huge market for collector's items. Ancient art and pottery fetch quite a bit, but most people who get rich do it by finding a probe. Morbid as it sounds, Voyager I and II sold for $45 and $40 million each, and the other objects launched by Old Earth, picked up by curious and brilliant (and forgotten) races are worth almost as much, even though there are thousands and thousands of them.
It creeps me out, personally. Why would you want to own something from the age of "first contact" -- to use the modern euphemism?
Not that it's anyone's fault. I'm not one of those nuts who thinks we should all spend our lives atoning for what our ancestors did in the name of exploration and discovery. Every one of those probes carried a message of friendship and goodwill for the people who'd find them, and they were sent long before we found the first ruined city on another world. Long before we knew what we had done.
By the time we understood that the human immune system was anything special it was too late. We had sent probes, or satellites, or golden records to every planet in the galaxy that harbored life. All carrying a message of peace. | The old man sat chasing his own thoughts. His memory wasn't what it once was and he kept losing his train of thought. He'd try to remember something, reason through it and just before he could latch on to it it would be gone like it was never there.
Zargrarf approached smiling, "My old nemesis, it pains me to see you in such a state! You humans live such short fleeting lives but I had to see you again. You were one of my greatest adversaries but now you are just a pale shadow of your former self."
The old man stirred, "Eh....Is that you Zargrarf?"
"Yes it is, you remember me?"
The old man motioned for Zargrarf to come closer. Zargrarf approached and leaned in to better hear him. "Yes?"
The old man smiled and bit down hard on a false tooth to release a neurotoxin specifically designed to kill only one being, Zargrarf. The old man blew in Zargrarf's direction and exlaimed "I've been saving that for 80 years you son of a bitch! I finally got you! Haha!"
The old man couldn't even remember his own name anymore, but he held onto something unique only to humans in all the galaxy, he held on to a grudge. | 2014-07-16T13:34:49 | 2014-07-16T12:28:18 | 88 | 35 |
[WP] You're a foreigner who goes to live in Japan. Your house is haunted, but the cultural differences are so big, it's the Yokai who ends up being scared of you. | "Shoes!" screeches the tengu lurking outside my window. "Shoes! Indoors! Take them off before you enter the house!"
I look outside my window and sigh.
"Oh," I say, "it's you again. Can you leave me alone for once?"
Unfortunately, the thought of this unwanted pest - sometimes roommate - leaving me alone continues to seem unlikely. By now, I've already listened to the tengu's life story.
I learned much more than I needed about the civil war in the Kamakura period and the role of monks as military leaders - apparently, that had been the tengu's job. I had heard the story of his downfall a million times. Useless as a primary source, given that I heard it from a supernatural creature. Besides, that's hardly anything that will help me in my job teaching the schoolchildren at the language center a few blocks away.
I go to prepare a cup of tea for myself and open the drawer, only to find a kappa lurking inside.
"Can you get out of my house, too?" I grumble, picking up the little frog-like creature by his legs.
"Tell me something," I ask, "if I pour the water out of your skull, will you die?"
The kappa begins twitching, terrified that's exactly what I'll do.
"I see," I mutter, and throw the kappa across the room.
I couldn't help but remember what my Japanese friend had told me about this when I met her in college in the united states. We were both taking a class on second language education, and we were sitting outside at the Irish pub across the street from campus when the topic of religion came up - when we were talking about our families, she wanted to know what my parents did for a living, and I related to her that my father was an Episcopal priest and my mother was a Religion professor. I asked her about religion in Japan. Spirits are everywhere in Japan, she'd said, and just something you have to deal with - but I didn't know how much, or what an absolute household nuisance they would be, until now. | The sound of terrified breathing and a fast heartbeat permeating the small, dark closet.
It's coming back!
A deep, rhythmic baritone "thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk" slowly echoing down the hall, closing in.
Closer and closer, you finally hear it, a sickening squelch every other "thunk", a faint yet sickening odor briefly tickles your nose.
It pauses just outside your door, you hold your breath for what feels like hours, waiting. Slowly the thunking continues. It's leaving, continuing off, deeper into the house. Your heart beating heavy in your throat, you take your chance. Sliding the door open and making a dash to the exit. Briefly you notice the horror smeared into the floor and you feel a profound nausea and deep panic.
You run faster, seconds pass, feeling like an eternity. Finally you slam open the door.
An agitated cry from within, where the creature likes to lair, "Honey, what was that noise!"
"Nothing dear, just that damn ghost again. Do you know where the mop is? I stepped in dog shit again"
You shutter in terror, clawing at the bark of the farthest tree as the house draws you back. You howl out in horror as you fly back towards the house, your final and eternal resting place.
Why couldn't I have died in the barn! | 2019-09-17T18:09:34 | 2019-09-17T14:57:04 | 46 | 33 |
[WP] When you die, you don't go to the afterlife of you're religion, you go to the afterlife of the religion whose tenets you followed most closely, knowingly or not. | The city hums with life. The people oozing by like a faceless blob.
On good days I dive into the grime, and pull out society's cancerous refuse. Other days I acknowledge we've lost a member of blue. He crossed the line, and went dirty. There's no coming back once you're a crooked cop.
.55. My birthday was only a few weeks away. Retirement teased me with daydreams of fishing out by my cabin, yet haunted me at the same time. As a child I was lucky to know my calling. As a man it defined me. My ex wives can attest to that.
I was framed. I never stole the drugs from evidence. I never fed info to the local dealers. What I did do, was take my trusty glock -and two decades of tactical experience- and visited those that dared tarnish my good name.
When I had taken out the crew in a whirling din of smoke, profanity and lead, I lay bleeding on the concrete of the ruined warehouse.
I didn't call it in. No point. The wall of blue had long since turned their back on me. Even the medics would surely be "late" to arrive.
This is how my final act played out, I thought.
I was surprised when I woke up here. This giant Hall, with many doors. Food of gluttonous proportions provided in mountains. Enough booz to make an alcoholic blush. Every day I join the legion of warriors to enact moments of glory. They didn't take kindly to me using my gun, so now I'm learning how to swing an axe.
Apparently this place is run by an old man, and his son. I picked up the son's hammer the other day: he wasn't too pleased. I have a lot to learn, but it doesn't help that I can't speak their language. | For a large chunk of my life I expected nothing to happen after... well after *I* ended. I expected complete cession of consciousness, a total end to my cognitive functions... a lack of everything including the self-awareness that would have made the Void unbearable.
What I got was a man behind a desk with a file that had my name paper-clipped onto it.
"So..." I said, "can I check to see if I've gotten this straight?"
"Yes," the man behind the desk said, "It'd be rather... embarrassing for me if you don't."
"Okay," I said, taking a deep breath, "Every Religion's afterlives are simultaneously true."
The man nodded.
"The Afterlife which has jurisdiction over you is judged by the tenets that you live your life by," I said, "and not geography, birth, or even your own belief."
The man nodded again.
"In that case..." I said, "Why am I sitting in the Celestial Bureaucracy?"
The man smiled slightly, and then looked down into my folder, "You fit our hiring requirements." | 2016-03-07T19:21:03 | 2016-03-07T18:54:40 | 128 | 37 |
[WP]: In one paragraph, write the most disgusting and despicable character you can ever come up with. In the second paragraph, kill them in a way that makes me feel sorry for them. | One by one they died. They were on their knees, obvious tears streaming from their faces. *How would any child react to their death?* Alex though. Two lifeless bodies lay to his right; they couldn't have been older than seven. Three more to go. It wouldn't be long now. He placed his revolver to the back of the head of the next child. "P...p...please don't kill me!" He choked out in a fit of uncontrollable fear. Alex sighed. This wasn't going to get any easier. "It's for your own good," Alex sighed. "Trust me, please." The shot echoed throughout the small stone room, causing the remaining two children to jump in fear. He placed the gun at the head a small girl, the next in line. She was clearly crying too hard to speak. "This is the only way, you have to die." The shot seemed louder than the first. He pointed his revolver at the last kid. He was almost done setting them free. The gun clicked with an empty chamber. He was sure he had loaded enough! Even so, there wasn't time. He grabbed the small boy, throwing him to his back. Alex straddled him, and began to choke the child. "This will be easier if you don't fight it." Alex said, the boy clawed at his hands, fighting for his life. After a long minute, his body fell limp.
Alex stood, wiping his hands on the front of his uniform. He was finally finished. The banging at the door grew louder. "Soldat Kreuegar!" The voice shouted from outside. "For the last time, open this door!" Alex slowly walked over to the steel latch, undoing it with a heavy hand. The door burst open, German soldier pouring in from the outside, rifles pointed at Alex. "What have you done?" The man who had been shouting bellowed. "You know that we needed these children to further the war effort! Shreizer needed them for his chemical testing, and you have ruined his work. You are a traitor to the Third Reich, even Hitler himself!" He shouted, spit flying from his irate expression. When Alex joined the army, he never signed up to torture children. Killing them had hurt him in a way he would never recover from, but he had saved them from months of torture and pain. Everyone knew Auschwitz was the worst place to be a Jewish child. At least they died fast, he could offer them that. "I saved them from you monsters" Alex said with a smile. "You will never have them now." The officer raised his hand. "You are no better than a Jew." With that, his hand dropped. Alex barely felt the pain as the bullets from ten rifles cut through his flesh. He fell to the ground, still smiling as the light faded from his eyes. | 10:31am-water cooler conversation between two co-workers:
Paragraph 1:
"It always seemed to be just about the money with Harold. Remember his first week on the job? We all made an attempt to make him feel welcome, but boy oh boy.. We quickly found out that he wasn't one to socialize or contribute to the lives of anyone but himself. He pinched every penny that found its way into the clutches of his shriveled, jew fingers.
Would he ever pitch in to the weekly Friday pot luck? Not a chance. Remember? Instead he would always bring the same rancid-smelling tuna sandwich. It never failed to fumigate the entire damn office. Could you imagine having to sit in the cubicle next to such an inconsiderate bastard? My nose literally could not take it!
And remember when we had the 5k to help raise awareness for the starving children in Africa? Did he run in it? Are you kidding? Instead he took that time to cash in on the overtime paycheck....
And it was always overtime for him, wasn't it? He was the first to arrive and last to leave, but he never in his three years on the job said a word to me. God, he even worked most Sundays instead of going to church with his family- whatever family he had left that is. His wife left him years ago.. Luckily, from what I hear, she got full custody."
Paragraph 2:
"I suppose it was only a matter of time until the old bat finally keeled over of a heart attack. Oh well. It's not like anyone in the office will ever miss him... Too bad about his daughter though. Did you hear? Margaret from accounting said that she went to his funeral. Apparently his daughter has some type of rare cancer that she's been dealing with for like three years, and now that Harold's gone, her family won't have the money to continue the chemo sessions. The doctors only give her 2 months to live."
Edit: sorry then formatting is off. On mobile, I'm unable to represent it in two paragraphs without having a monster, hard to read first paragraph. I broke it up so it's easier to read. Hope you enjoyed it still.
| 2014-07-28T00:47:26 | 2014-07-28T00:10:45 | 114 | 10 |
[WP] You are the Last Hero. The one they call when nobody else can handle the threat. You've answered the call only twice since discovering your powers, devastating as they are. You prefer the quiet life, living on your stipend. The Red Phone has just rung for the third time. | All Heros like to live by The Code. Do no more harm than necessary. Destroy as little as possible. Bring the Villain in alive for rehabilitation. It never works. They either escape or are released and go right back to villainy.
When I arrived in Mega City I could see the devastation. Buildings were crumbling. Corpses of innocents lay everywhere. Even the bodies of a few Lesser Heros who got in over their head. I shake my head at the waste of life. It's fine to be virtuous. Admirable even. But at a certain point it's time to put down the Rule Book and Raise the Black. This is one of those times.
Which I suppose is why they called me in. I don't have a name. Not officially. While everyone knows about me, I'm more of a whispered entity than named. In fear of mentioning me will summon me. Not how it works but hey, I'm comfortable living off the pension they give me and streaming on Spasm.
During my trek through the ruins I pause and kneel at the corpse of Falcon Girl. Her throat bore a wide, red smile and thick rebar pinned her wings to the ground. She was my friend. A fellow Streamer who's Offline Avatar will haunt me.
"Well, at least they didn't violate you," I whispered. The last time they called me in was when Red Rover was captured. The madmen had tortured and violated her in unspeakable ways. She asked my to end it for her and I obliged. That secret stayed between us.
Commotion in the city center drew me closer. Blue Streak, Fire Storm, and Infinity were impaled on rebar stakes with flames licking up their torsos. The Rogues Gallery who managed to work together for once we're celebrating with all their henchmen. To bring down a A Class Hero was an impressive feat. Three? Unheard of.
This. This is why sometimes you have to put them down in a way that they'll never get back up again. Which dawned on me. This is also why they don't do it. Why resort to the ultimate measure when you can have someone else do it and keep the rest in line? Have a proverbial Boogyman.
I made my way to the center of the city square. Where the pyres burned. And then I jumped.
Higher and higher I flew, reaching the upper limits of the atmosphere. And then straight down. Faster and faster I willed myself. Picking up an unnatural speed.
Once I pushed myself to Fractional C. When I impacted the entire island I was aiming for was destroyed. This time I feathered my speed. All that energy has to go somewhere.
Think Nuclear Warhead detonation three feet above the ground. Flash and heat killed most of them. Vaporizing the men and women who followed the Villain Corps. The rest were flung into buildings with such force that their bones were pulverized. Most of the lesser Villains were vaporized as well.
Thankfully not Smiley. His attribution was to always leave his victims "Smiling". He was the one who killed Falcon Girl.
"Well," he grinned through the flash burns. "Ya got me. Take me in, I guess".
I'm not sure what I enjoyed more. The look on his face when I shoved my hand into his abdomen and pulled out a handful of intestines or the scream he made when I flung him hard enough to send him into the next state, leaving a trail of gore behind.
Next was Fever, Fire Storms rival. His skull made a nice crunch when I made him bite the charred curb.
One by one I went through and cleaned out the Gallery. Some tried to fight. Some tried to run. None succeeded.
Live Wire was smart. She shot herself before I could reach her.
Finally all that remained was War-I-are. The leader of the Villain Corps. He lead through brutality of his own, killing any villain who would attempt to usurp him.
"More villains will rise," He grunted through clenched teeth. "You will never stop us all."
"I know. And then they call me in." War-I-are weighed a good 250 lbs. His head was only 8.
Later, there will be a hearing and I'll be "condemned" for my actions. This is not how we settle things they'll say. Nothing will come of it. The next time they need me they'll call. And I'll answer.
It's good to keep a Devil in your back pocket for when the Angel on your shoulder fails. | Thomas looked down in disbelief...
"We... we're going to have to call John"
Michael felt a protest well up in his throat- but swallowed it back down knowing all too well that Thomas was right.
"Who makes the call?" Michael asks half-heartedly... knowing it's his responsibility.
The look on Thomas' face says it all, now's not the time to be making jokes... nobody calls for John unless they need to. John wasn't like most heroes... to say the least. John didn't take a hero name, didn't do much aside from just collect his check every week.
They'd had to call him twice before, one time he was in a good mood - the other time, it took 3 years to fully clean up the mess he caused on the eastern seaboard.
But to make an enemy of John, would be a fate far worse.
Michael felt his stomach drop as he picked up the red phone, and pressed the button. He'd only heard recordings and seen the training footage, he was braced for the worse as he waited for the line to ring.
But it didn't ring, he was startled by a voice immediately on the other end
"The Fuck are you lot on about this time?"
Michael was a bit taken back, but after regaining his thoughts he began to reply
"So sorry t-"
"I don't want pleasantries, I want you to tell me what you are doing disturbing me- ya know what, fuck this - too slow."
Michael felt the paper he was holding be yanked from his hand
"Is this what the fuss is about?" John was standing over Michael now, poor Thomas looked though he saw a ghost.
Michael carefully put the phone back, trying not to show how rattled he was.
"You'd think if you're gonna waste my time and drag me halfway across the globe, you'd at least be kind enough to get on with it." John mocked as he eyed the paper
Thomas stammered "Halfway around the globe? In a second?"
"Asking questions you already know the answers to... I just told you, the fuck is wrong with you people anyhow. Let's see, says here 'Doctor Phil'? ... no, *Phile*... Okay, that woulda been a weird take down" John chuckled to himself
Michael turned to face John and in utter disbelief realized he was holding Doctor Phile up by the back of his collar, kicking and protesting loudly.
"This your guy?" John looked amused at their puzzled faces "Heh, now I'm the one asking questions I know the answer to. - You sure no one else could have handled this little guy? Captain Insane-O probably- you know what, It's fine."
"I don't know what kind of trick you used," Doctor Phile Bellowed. "But I'll be sure to-dwOUGLfgh"
With a slight twitch, John threw the Doctor against the wall and his body ragdolled to the ground.
"I-is he dead?" Michael looked on in horror
"No, no he... wait a minute..."
John walked over and picked up the limp body of Dr. Phile and gave it a sturdy slap on the back.
Dr. Phile gasped loudly before coughing up a bit of blood
"Not anymore!" John smiled proudly as he held the sputtering mess toward the pair.
Michael just stared in amazement before gathering his thoughts "I... well let's just put him in-"
"Room 703, Got it - Gotta say, I gave you guys some crap, but this was a lot less annoying than last time" John dragged the mess of a man out of the room and graciously - that was the last either Michael or Thomas had to see John.
But many more trainees would hear recordings of the interaction, and along with other less smooth incidents came to fear the possibility of them one day having to pick up that red phone. | 2022-03-29T05:48:43 | 2022-03-29T01:55:07 | 55 | 40 |
[WP] The most difficult part of being a Supervillian? Find love, not because other people won't like you, but because the stupid Superheros will swoop in and "rescue" your date every time, but this time you have a plan, and it's going to work. | This is it! The Plan Bs to end all Plan Bs! This was absolutely fool-proof! I've tried concocting love potions; I've tried psychology tricks; I've tried going on blind dates with horrible people, even more horrible than I am; but all of those attempts were trashed! The common denominator? That little cocky brat coming in to save the princess like a valiant knight in rose-colored armor! She had foiled my attempts for a while now, but this time, I'm sure, shall be the last! I have watched her from the shadows, carefully putting the pieces, assimilating her behavior and preferences! Call it stalking if you will, but I refuse to play the part of a hopeless romantic any longer!
She is the blandest main character with a love for learning at day; magical girl by night. At least, that's what the data told me. Through my eyes, she was a kind yet nosy lady, and the frequent target of this nosiness is no other than me, a simple genius hacker whom she considers her equal, her rival! So I tried to adapt to her methods and analyzed her pattern. Home, school, library, home, superhero business.
Using this information, I acted accordingly. I began by applying as student librarian and developed a "close friendship" with her over time. I discovered she liked the same books I liked, and sometimes we swapped book recommendations. Sometimes she'd even talk about "that one hacker boy \[she\] knows that was kinda cute but has some questionable morals" and the misadventures that followed, not knowing she was making a fool out of herself. We also shared snacks and held hands, you know, the typical friendship stuff. So typical, I almost forgot she were my enemy.
But enough of that nonsense! No one wants to know the story of how we ended up crushing on each other.
I did the most sensible thing I could think of at the time. I asked her out on a date using my Librarian Alternate Identity, Lai for short. But whoopsie-doopsie! Looks like the hacker she loathes so much kidnapped him, and now it's up to the heroine to rescue her beloved!
And it begins now, as I hide myself in a closet. My phone was connected to the cameras with microphones so I had no trouble watching this unfold.
Today, as usual, she entered the library she frequented, but not as her civilian identity. She found the library barren. And most importantly...
Her favorite student librarian wasn't there.
"Curse that hacker!" I heard her say as she slammed her fist on a nearby shelf. "'The tables will turn, I will ruin YOUR date'? That's so creepy! How did he even find out about the boy I like? This is so frustrating!"
She goes straight to the empty counter, and there aren't any of his belongings either. All that's left was a book, and as soon as she touched it, the alarms went off.
This was my cue. I kicked open the door and ran to the counter, bringing with me the take-out snacks I ordered. I placed them on the counter and pushed the secret button on the book to turn the alarms off.
It was her turn now. She crossed her arms and ranted loudly: "What's the meaning of this? Where's Lai?!"
I smiled. I brushed my hair up and put on some glasses. "Here you go."
The look on her face was priceless.
​
//Second comment on this subreddit! I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing! ~~Sorry they don't have names hahaha.~~ The girl is named Tele, and the boy is named "Lai" (real name unknown for now) Might make this a rom-com series if I have the time.
EDIT: [here's a sketch of Lai and Tele that I thought you might enjoy.](https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/423083600053927938/549088955908358154/Lai_and_Tele_rWritingPrompts.png) | There were scarcely anyone on the station on a weekday's afternoon, so Nick could get some space to breathe. He pressed his back against the sun-burned wall, his hair smelt like ash. A flame flickered in his dull eyes, the taste of smoke touched his lips. Nick squinted, turning to his left. Was it a train he was waiting for? The train came nevertheless. Nick closed his eyes for a brief moment, savouring the cigarette. The moment passed, he tossed it into the trash, regretfully. In his back pocket lied a crumbled ticket. He got on one of the trains.
The river was close enough for a one day trip and quiet enough for a one man trip. Nick strolled alongside a setting sun, mellowed to the end. The wet grass brushed against his leg. It was kind of ticklish and it was kind of cool. Nick took off his shoes and his socks, to let the wet grass wrapped around his feet and the wet dirt seeped into his flesh. He looked up, the sun was gone and all that was left were glimmering city lights from a distant place. Nick picked up a few rocks here and there. He skipped the stone across the crystalline surface, hearing their sweet crispy sound breaking into a space that was his and his alone. Then came along footsteps no less clearer. Nick did not turn back, for he knew he would find a woman in her mid-twenties, probably looking a bit tired and unkept.
"I didn't see you at work today." - said the woman.
"I remember asking Charlie to fill me in." - Nick skipped another rock, but it just sounded dull, so he dropped the rocks down altogether. - "He did not put up a good fight, didn't he?"
"He got his own project going on. And the guy work the day shift already. He's a really good friend."
"I know."
Nick the strolled toward the other end of the river, faster by every steps. The woman called out to him.
"Hey, wait up!"
He kept on walking.
"I didn't come here straight from work just for you to bail out on me."
He kept on walking.
"Look, I'm in my high heels. Hey....Help!"
Then came a scream and what sounded like someone falling from the river bank. So Nick rushed back, and to his horror
the woman lied neatly on the ground. She looked at him, patting on a patch of grass next to her. Nick had no choice but to lie down as well. The city lights ran on top of the still river, and Nick imagined that it was what someone was see when they were about to cry.
"How did you find me?" - he asked.
"I always find you."
"Yeah, but that was in working hours. This time?"
"I don't know." - said the woman - "I had a feeling that if I didn't find you, I never could again."
"So you did."
"So I did."
They stayed there for a while, in a darkness so silent that Nick could hear his own heart beating, until he realized the last train was about to leave. So he turned to the woman, only to see her peaceful face asleep, and he lied down again.
Nick watched the quiet river flows, with all the glimmer on top of it, but he didn't felt like anyone is crying anymore. | 2019-02-23T07:17:19 | 2019-02-23T07:02:41 | 43 | 25 |
[WP] Humans are actually a phenomenally advanced species - except for the glaringly obvious thing they missed. Write from the perspective of a befuddled alien xenobiologist. | "The supreme tragedy of the Human race was their inability to understand Numbers. Such a brilliant species became trapped in their own self-imposed prison of a primitive numeral system that did not resonate with the Universe's numeral system. In fact, in their entire eight-thousand year lifespan, they only discovered 18 Numbers, most notably Light, Gravity, Sphere, Quark, Electron and even Boson. There is arguable speculation that mankind was even close to discovering the Cosmological Constant, as it is referenced in much of their literature indirectly.
"The mere fact that they were able to attain quantum computing and localized spacetravel using such a primitive numerical system is in itself remarkable - in fact, genius in the extreme. Though they are frequently dismissed as brutes (not without merit), their savant nature cannot be overlooked.
"It should be a point of great sadness to the collective species of the galaxy that Humans were unable to discover the Universal Numbers, for their determination and perseverance, despite their hopelessly short lifespans, were remarkable. It is truly a galactic cultural loss that they were too oblivious to leave their feeble mathematical system, or even understand that there WAS another system all together. It is similarly tragic that they were not discovered before they extinguished themselves, for all they needed was to be shown the way."
_________________________________________________________________________________________
Willing to continue this if so desired! | ReportUpdate7931
They continue to advance at an incredible pace. We now predict in 20 cycles the commonalities: nanotech (orig. estimate 120 cycles), holocircuitry in 14 cycles (orig. 80 cycles).
Revised surpassing date (human - standard bio): 3 cycles.
Revised surpassing date (human - Lyssian): 12 cycles.
As requested:
All modalities re-tested & analysed: this species is not co-opted. No other observers present.
RecentOBS:
They are now aware of modal: "dark" matter-energy. They remain unaware of our presence but estimate is now: 5 cycles.
Conclusion:
Priority: continue research communication. We MUST contact first. | 2015-04-09T15:20:46 | 2015-04-09T13:47:40 | 32 | 17 |
[WP] Humans never figured out how to travel faster than light, but immortality was not that hard after all. As a consequence, space travel is possible, but very boring. | They packed and left once more.
Dolly sighed as they did it, looking back from the ramp at the gold-green horizon, pierced all through with falling stars, all aflame. The world groaned and hissed. She felt the slateland below her feet shimmy and quake.
Another home lost.
On the ship, she settled into a corner, not helping, a passive protest of the situation. Her mother set a crate at her feet.
"Don't pout. It's the start of another adventure."
Dolly shook off her mother's optimism, diving into the crate. "What's this?" she said, pulling up a binder, corroded, yellow and warped.
"Careful," said her mother. "Those are pictures. Old, old pictures."
"Of *what*?" said Dolly, flipping open the pages. "What are these things?
Dolly's mother laughed, settling in beside her daughter. "It's us. From before."
Dolly shook her head. "No it isn't. This is... I don't know *what* this is. Look how silly they look. How... ugly."
Her mother shrugged. "We didn't think so then." She pointed at an image. "That's me."
Dolly pulled back, staring in disbelief. "No it isn't! Look at the... I mean..."
"This is what we were in the beginning," said Dolly's mother. "Those were perfect bodies for Earth. Slim, light, nimble. Adapted to the atmosphere. I miss those bodies sometimes..."
"What's wrong with *these* bodies?" said Dolly, looking down at herself.
"Nothing! Not a thing. But you must remember we've been so many places, dear. And they were all so different. We've made changes along the way to suit each and every new home. See here..."
She put a gentle finger on the trio of exposed ridges across her daughter's bare chest. "On Calais - you remember Calais? - we formed these slits in order to help us breathe. The old way wouldn't have done. And here..."
She traced the edge of the thin membranous flap that ran along the length of Dolly's forearm. "There was hardly any solid land on Galway. We had to adapt. We're always adapting. Even the bare shape of us. The gravity was much, much harsher on Fulsome. We grew stouter because we had to. The old us would've snapped right in half."
Dolly nodded. She remembered some of these places, and she supposed she remembered some of these changes, but they hadn't felt like changes. Looking back, they seemed a natural progression. "This part looks stupid," she said, resting a finger on the part of the image that showed a flowing, black wave riding down from the top of her mother's head.
Again, her mother laughed. "It was the style. Your father certainly loved my long hair, impractical as it may have been." She touched the silvery, solid webbing that sat like a shield atop her daughter's head. "We could be impractical then, though. The radiation was different. No threat of black flares." She sighed. "I guess things were a bit simpler then."
"Better?" said Dolly.
"No," said her mother, running a loving finger across the outer rim of Dolly's folded wings. "Just different. That's what comes of survival, I suppose. You must always be willing to become."
"Become what?" said Dolly.
Dolly's mother smirked. "Whatever you must." She took back the binder and set it in the crate. "Back to work, dear. This world is no longer ours."
Dolly staggered up to her feet. "I hate living out in the black."
"The black is just an interlude," said Dolly's mother. "It reminds us to appreciate those times when we have solid earth to call our own."
Dolly understood, even if she preferred not to agree. She gathered up the last of her possessions - the ones that would come with them into the black - and said goodbye to her dying home. It was sad, but necessary, she realized. That's just how survival works. | "Unknown species send out probes all the time. That's gotta be what it is." Jim said with shaky confidence. *It could also be a planetary warhead* he thought, but he didn't see the point in mentioning that. Either way, this was not the ideal start to his barbeque.
The shuttle had landed right in the pool, and leg extensions could be heard scraping about under the water. Jim looked around at his guests, and was relieved to see that none of them were panicking.
"Can't escape work after all, can you?" he said amiably, gave a meaningful look to his wife, and turned back to his house.
"I guess that's a good place to call it quits." He heard Jess say to all of their neighbors. He was already walking into the kitchen, and toward the bedroom. He arrived at his closet and pulled out his suitcase. He rushed back out the door, trying to look nonchalant. The crowd was thinning out, and he could hear there shocked whispers as they left. It occurred to him that this might be a once in a lifetime event for some of them. Space junk doesn't just land all over the place. It was just his luck that it would land at his place, though. Wait till the boys at the station hear about this.
He snapped open the suitcase, and pulled out several scanners. His wife arrived next to him. "What do you really think it is?" She asked.
"I don't know." He answered honestly. "Maybe it's not even safe to be standing here. I just didn't want to cause a panic."
"I'll get out of your hair then, but be careful." She said meaningfully. He nodded back at her, already lost in his work. She sighed and walked back to the house.
"Let's see." he said to himself as he readied the equipment. Lights began flashing on the device, then it settled down. "No signs of life. Nothing particularly radioactive." He muttered, swapping scanners. "None of the seven deadly elements."
He sighed to himself. "Guess there's only one way to find out what's in this box."
___
"Hey dad!" Boyd shouted. Jim jumped.
"Oh. Hey there son. You snuck up on me." He looked back and noticed how much the suns had moved. It's been longer than he'd thought.
"How much longer is this going to be?" he asked.
"Well it's pretty primitive craftsmanship, so I've already put a dent in it. In fact," he continued, "I was about to open it up right now."
"Can I see?" the boy asked, his eyes beaming. Logic and reasoning couldn't compete with the tug inside him that came from seeing those eyes. He held out his hand. "Get in." he said.
"Awesome!"
Jim turned back around, and reapplied his torch. He finished off the rough triangle and the panel fell off into the pool. Jim waited, holding his son behind him. Nothing. It took his eyes a while to adjust to the dark inside of the pod, and when he realized what he was looking at, he thrust his son away.
"Dad!" Boyd tried to yell, but he was thrust underwater. Jim dove after him. The air began to ripen almost immediately. Jim came back up, shielding Boyd's eyes, too late.
"What were those things, Dad?" he cried. Jim realized that it was too late.
"I don't know, son." He replied. "But they're nothing anymore."
___
/r/Periapoapsis | 2017-08-15T07:00:16 | 2017-08-15T06:56:06 | 313 | 12 |
[WP] Humans once wielded formidable magical power but with over 7 billion of us on the planet now Mana has spread far to thinly to have any effect. When hostile aliens reduces humanity to a mere fraction the survivors discover an old power has begun to reawaken once again. | I awoke in the night, the distant sounds of screams altogether too familiar. It didn't sound isolated - they must have found a safe-haven. Hundreds would be massacred. It was just like I said; don't bunch together. Don't rely on each other for support. Survival is all about laying low, keeping quiet and hoping that luck was on your side.
I'd been having a strange dream. It wasn't a nightmare, which was rare already; it was more of a premonition. I'd felt a burning sensation in my hand, as if there were energy coursing through it. The feeling still stuck with me, and I focused on it to try drown out the screams.
********
There were more of them now; towering beasts, eldritch monstrosities. We'd imagined aliens as these advanced beings, visiting us with technology that we could not even comprehend, bestowing knowledge and gifts. But no.
They were unimaginable nightmares, drifting in through space, landing on our forsaken planet and hunting us mercilessly. Our combined efforts only took down a few, and the ensuing nuclear winter only made things worse. And now they hunt us down without rest. It doesn't seem to be for sustenance - they ignore other animals, though they will harm them if it is in their way. No; it feels like eradication. And more come every day.
But the the dreams won't go away. What little sleep I have is filled with feelings of flame and fury; of ominous premonition, of terrifying power. I feel that energy more and more. I suspect that I am going mad, but I'd rather be mad than dead. And judging by my travels, it seems that I am one of the few left with the privilege of choice.
Sleep comes to me eventually, the incessant chittering of the aliens filtering through my dreams of intrigue, of primal power.
*****
I awoke to a sound of crashing, of beastly lumbering.
*I've been found.*
I sprinted from my lair, a crumbling ruin, just as a jagged tentacle pierced through the foundations. Rubble collapsed around me as I leapt through a window, landing on the floor below in a clumsy roll. There was no time to think about the pain - only escape.
I ran as fast as I could, praying that it was only one, praying that it could not keep up. There were many different forms of alien, and most of the massive ones were slow in the city. They could run at least as fast as a man, but the buildings and ruins proved ample obstacles. With a bit of luck, I could survive this. I had done so before.
A sudden crash to my right sent glass flying just ahead of me. An arthropod the size of a large dog landed in front of me, its razor-sharp legs digging into the floor. There was no chance of running from it. But if I climbed the building to avoid it, my pursuer would destroy it as if it was a cardboard box. I had two choices, but either led to death.
My right hand burned, a sharp red glow emitting from my palm. It felt like trapped electricity. Like every bit of primal power focused into a single thought.
A choice:
Shall I **fight**, or **flee**?
****
[Part II](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/7i4fn8/wp_resurge_ii/) | [Part III](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/7i4p1p/wp_resurgence_iii/) | [Part IV (new)](https://www.reddit.com/r/CroatianSpy/comments/7i65tc/wp_resurgence_iv/)
It's a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' story! Vote on whichever choice you like best, and I hope I won't disappoint :)
/r/CroatianSpy | "Hang on, so there's some fixed amount of power and it's divided equally among all humans?"
"Yep."
"And you, a strange alien creature, have culled the human population in order to increase the power granted to any one individual?"
"Exactly. Do you want to try out your new powers?"
"I've a few questions first actually -- as a more advanced intelligence you're certainly aware of evolution, of the fact that all life forms here on earth share a common ancestor, of the fact that distinct species arise by a process of natural selection, where only those which adapt best to their environment survive?"
"Go on..."
"And you're telling me that the human species possess some special access to magical powers, with the magnitude of each individual's access _depending explicitly on the number of other alive humans_?
"Yeah. Is there a problem?"
"You bet there's a problem. What we call human life is unavoidably arbitrary. If we draw up the family tree showing the ancestry of all humans, at some point we make it back to some gross slime that definitely isn't human, and so at some point between today and whenever the slime was around we need to choose some generation and say 'Ok, after this we're human'. Maybe before we were neanderthal, or what have you, but neanderthal is just a label we made up too, every species is. You're telling me that whether or not an organism is labeled human actually has (1) some effect on the organism, and, worse, (2) some effect on every other organism we call human. But as I've argued, these labels are completely arbitrary."
"You know you can fly now? Don't you want to try that out?"
"We even have a maximally human organism, against which all other organisms are compared to test their human-ness? It's Carl Linnaeus -- in honour of all the work he did on species [we locked his skeleton up somewhere](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Type_(biology)#Lectotype) and granted him the title of Ur-human. Which means that everyone alive today is slightly less human than some family of Swedish nerds in the 1700s. And if we'd happened to have chosen someone else, we'd have a different ordering of humanity in terms of human-ness."
"You can teleport! You could go somewhere else, somewhere far far away, _right now_. Wouldn't that be fun?"
"Worse, we haven't stopped evolving. At some point in the future we'll be so far from Carl Linnaeus that we'll need a new label to describe us. Do those powers disappear then? Once we arbitrarily decide to call ourselves something else? Seems hard to believe really."
"Oh My God do you know this is why no one has bothered to contact you people all this time? I'm leaving. Do us all a favour and don't go developing any sort of space exploration program. If I see a human come anywhere near our star system I will see to their Zapping myself."
"How will you decide whether the organism is human or not?"
[See also](http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/11/21/the-categories-were-made-for-man-not-man-for-the-categories/) | 2018-02-27T05:33:50 | 2017-12-06T21:27:18 | 341 | 32 |
[WP] Write me a fairy tale reddit. Some set in snowy land, with dragons, danger, interesting quest. And make the hero of the story girl/woman. Thank you. | Once, there was a kingdom made of ice. Snow covered the ground like a perpetual blanket. Frost glittered on thatched rooftops like diamonds in the sun. In the center of the kingdom was a large enchanted fire, a roaring magnificent blaze that kept the citizens alive. The fire itself was at the heart of the royal palace. The palace was built of enchanted stone and glass, so that it was impervious to the flames, but instead drew from the fire to warm the royalty within it. Peasants and merchants would come from all over the kingdom once a month with their taxes. In exchange, they were allowed to take a jar of the magical fire home to their hearths.
The fire was said to have come from an ancient dragon who had been spared by a soldier. The dragon breathed the fire into existence, and promised the soldier that he would be king of the wintry land. In return, he promised the soldier that the fire would never die, so long as the soldier and his descendants never slew a dragon.
Millennia passed, and the soldier's descendants soon forgot about the dragon, dismissing it as a child's tale. It came to be that there were twins born to the royal palace - a boy and a girl. The princess was quiet and plain, her hair black as the coal the commoner's burned and her voice was no louder than the squeak of a mouse. Her quiet disposition grew even more so as her brother outshone her, to the point where she was forgotten. The prince grew to be handsome, charismatic, witty, and cunning. His charm and intelligence were exalted across the land. His ego was inflated - there was nothing he couldn't do! He led successful defenses against raids and slew his enemies in battle.
It came to be one night that the prince was drinking with his men, loud and rowdy. There was a woman, one of the ladies at court, that he had taken a fancy to.
"I want to bring her something no man ever could," he drawled drunkenly. "A gift, from a king amongst men, to a queen amongst women!"
His men cheered raucously and banged their tankards on the table.
"What kind of gift shall I get such a woman? For she is the fairest, richest, most intelligent of women, and there is nothing her heart could desire, having already owned every pleasure in this world!"
Draining his tankard for the ninth time, he slammed it down.
"I know," he leered. "The skin of a dragon! Milady will have the finest jewelry, made from the brute's scales and horns!"
His drunken mates roared with approval.
The next morning, the prince and his entourage started the long journey to the mountains. After six days and five nights of travel, the king encountered a young dragon. The dragon was the size of a small boat, and it killed six of the prince's men before the prince dealt it a mortal blow. As the dragon breathed its last, the eternal flame in the kingdom flickered and died, leaving the earth bare and cold in its absence.
The advisors at court pleaded with the prince, begging him to restore the flame. The prince tried to burn wood in the empty fire pit, but nothing would catch. The prince drank and raged and cursed, but he could not fix the broken enchantment. The kingdom grew cold, and soon its citizens began to die of frostbite.
The princess was never asked for her opinion. She was never asked to provide a solution. But watching her people die, she could not just stand idle. In the night, she took a horse from the stables and rode out to the mountains. After seven days and six nights of travel, she arrived at the mouth of the Dragons' Cave.
She tied the horse to the entrance, then made her way inside. Picking her way over a medley of gold, bones, and jewels, she went closer and closer to the heart of the mountain. All around, she could feel the eyes of the dragons around her, but she wished only to speak to their leader - the very same dragon who had cast the enchantment so long ago.
"What brings you here, mortal?" he boomed. "The agreement between us has been violated! One of my brethren has been slain."
"Forgive us," the princess said.
"What's that? Speak up!" the dragon roared. He peered at her again, not recognizing her. "Who are you?" he asked. "You are not the prince!"
"I'm the forgotten princess," she said, slightly angrily. "I want to fix my brother's misdeed."
"Alas," said the dragon. "The only way to reignite the fire, is by righting the wrong. Fix the balance. A life has been taken, a life must be given."
"Then I give my life!" the princess said, more confidently than she had said anything else in her life.
The dragon was stunned.
"You would give your life? For a mistake that was not your own?"
"I would," she said. "For love of my people."
Touched by this, the dragon declared, "I will not kill you, for your charity and good heart are more than enough! I will draw energy from the fire of your soul and reignite the flames of your homeland, however - you must become Queen."
"My brother would never allow that," she said.
"Do you not care for your people? Give your life in service, only then will the fire return."
The dragon and the princess returned to the kingdom.
"Mortals," announced the dragon. "This is your queen. Crown her thusly, and your fire shall return."
The prince gnashed his teeth and refused to relinquish his position as heir, but the people were cold and frustrated with his lack of results. Willing to try anything, the people staged a coup and crowned the princess.
As soon as the cold metal touched her dark hair, the flames erupted once more. The prince was forced to live a much simpler life, and the Queen gave her life in service to her people until she died. | "Tell me a fairytale, Daddy!"
The small room were astonishingly pink. There was a pink chair and table, and you could see drawings that were made with pink crayons spread all over the place, including the walls.
"Sure thing, pumpkin. Which one would you like me to read to you? White Snow? The little Mermaid?"
The little girl's eyes were bright and energetic, but his were tired and sleepy. He hoped she would a pick a short story, so he could call it a day.
"No! I want a new one!" the daughter shouted. "Why don't you tell me a story about me?"
He stopped for a second, pondering the request.
"About you, pumpkin?"
Her mind was made up.
"Yes! About me!" she said getting excited. "And make me a princess!"
The father would never admit but he found the request quite amusing himself.
"Whatever floats your boat, sweety" he replied hiding his own excitement.
"Once upon a time there was a little princess called Margot" he started.
"But everyone called her Maggie!" the daughter interrupted.
"Right! Except for her father. He insisted calling her Pumpkin"
At this point it hit the dad: it has been so long since he was *forced* to exercise his imagination, that he didn't know how to continue this fairytale... Desperately, he clung his thought to whatever he could use in the room. The first thing he laid his eyes upon was a small piece of cotton candy that shouldn't be there. And of course, it was pink.
"Well, princess Pumpkin (Maggie! insisted the girl) was happy living in the court of the great King Albert" the father told "There were balls and banquets and parties every week! That led the princess to believe that it was no different in the rest of the kingdom... You can imagine her shock when one day the Head of the Treasure entered the dinning room claiming that they were out of cotton candy. The vault was empty!".
Margot couldn't help herself.
"Cotton candy?" asked her inquisitively.
"Yes! Practically all of the kingdom were made of cotton candy! It was their main meal too. They had pink cotton candy for breakfast, pink cotton candy for lunch..." the father stalled.
"But where did it go?" asked Maggie.
Well, he didn't know.
"Well, princess Maggie didn't know". He saw his daughter mouth take a shape of an 'O' ".
"And that was her quest! To find the Pink Cotton Candy and bring it back!" the father proudly concluded.
---
Albert was surprised. He legitimately had his daughter's full attention by now.
"King Albert couldn't leave the kingdom, since he was the *King*.... so Princess Maggie made a vow to go away and to not return unless she succeeded on her quest. And so she left".
"Just like that?" inquired Margot.
The father understood the underlying truth. Something was missing on the story. Standing up, he put his hands on his pockets and he felt the car key with the tip of his fingers. Albert sat by the head of the bed once again.
"No" he answered "Not like that. Before princess Maggie's departure, King Albert bestowed a special gift upon her: a key".
"Are sure it was not a sword? Or a unicorn?" insisted the daughter.
"No. I'm sure. It was a key. A magical key" added the stubborn man.
"Magical? What does it do?"
He didn't know.
"The princess didn't know".There was a brief silence. "Actually, *nobody* knew why it was magical. The key was the most precious thing in the kingdom and it was passed from generation to generation to generation to generation to..."
"I get it!" she giggled. Maggie was almost peeing herself from so much laughter.
"Anyway, as soon as princess Pumpkin (oops! My mistake) left the castle, she couldn't face the view in front of her: there was no Cotton Candy in sight at all! Nothing was pink anymore, but just a painful white she couldn't bear".
Albert started to show his confidence on his story.
"The peasants in the village were just as surprised as the princess. They told her they had stayed hidden in theirs homes as soon as it began to snow the day before. But this white was no snow. 'It's like the storm wiped *everything* in its way' the blacksmith said".
"So no one knew what happened?" Maggie was starting to feel drowsy.
"No one" her father continued "but then a terrible cry was heard. It was unmistakably the sound of a dragon, although there was no dragon to be seen".
Margot rubbed her sleepy eyes.
"All village trembled, but princess Maggie was a courageous girl. She marched on, looking for this invisible dragon, taking only her magical key with her".
"Goodnight, daddy!" interrupted the girl once again. She was already drooling a little.
Albert was disappointed. He wanted to finish his fairytale, but there was no way. He turned off the lights and whispered:
"Goodnight, pumpkin. Sleep tight. We can continue the story tomorrow".
---
[/r/signmeup_stories](https://www.reddit.com/r/signmeup_stories/)
| 2017-01-12T17:47:30 | 2017-01-12T17:45:39 | 19 | 10 |
[WP] 2688 A.D - we made alien contact. It's not like anything we would ever have expected: We're welcomed as benevolent Gods. The probes containing mathematical, physical, biological and cultural data we sent out in the late 1990's had become the whole basis for their evolution! | Year 2688 A.D.- The Dyson Era
"Humanity has ascended to become master of the stars. We have expanded to dozens of systems, we have achieved warp speeds, we have finally completed the Alpha Centauri Dyson Sphere. An effort of a hundred years, billions of man hours, and entire solar systems strip mined of their resources culminates in this, Mankind's greatest achievement. With the near unlimited energy the star provides, we will step forward and take the mantle of the Gods. We will expand without end, and eventually see our species thriving from one spiral arm of the galaxy to the other. Welcome to the Eternal Golden Age! May the Emperium endure! And may the Emperor watch over you!" -The Announcment of Victory, Praetor Invictus
In 2234 the world went through a calamity. Alien invaders poured from portals all over the world. They were called "The Scorus". They scoured the world, destroying entire civilizations. They brought us to our knees.
That is, until a hero arose. The first Emperor. He rose from what was then called Italy. He had been a scholar, an expert in Roman history and military strategy. His band discovered the weakness of The Scorus while on a guerilla mission to disrupt on of their transport portals. They discovered a Scorus which was different. One which had never been seen before. It was fat where the Scorus was lean. It was a towering 8' tall where the others were a dimmunitive 3'. Most importantly, the other Scorus bowed and scraped before it.
We had never seen their commanders. We had only guessed at their existence. The Emperor called for reinforcements and quietly surrounded the invaders. They captured the Commander in the raid, though the Scorus fought bitterly to stop that from happening. The thing even tried to take it's own life rather than allow itself to be taken. It was too slow.
It is still widely unknown what secrets the Emperor learned from torturing the foul creature, but the tide turned on that day. That moment was the catalyst which changed everything. Suddenly, any battle lead by the Emperor was a slaughter, their gate cut off leaving no reinforcement, and no retreat. He used captured energy weapons to mount invasions on the Scorus homeworld, burning everything they could get their hands on.
Most who went in to the portals, never planned on returning. Few did. But soon enough, the Scorus stopped coming. We had done it. We had won.
The world united around its savior, and collectively elected him their ruler. He called his empire "The New Roman Empire". He spent his rule rebuilding Earth, and telling his people to prepare. We would build ships. We would find those who tormented us. We would burn them to cinders.
It took a hundred years, but he delivered on that promise. Or rather, his heir did. Using the captured gate technology which had once served as a vehicle to invade the Earth as a model, we perfected warp drive. We found their homeworld, and we burned it. Sure, we could have cleared them out using antimatter weapons, or just bombarded them with kinetic weapons. But we wanted to send a message. We would suffer no xeno to live. We dropped hundreds of thousands of nuclear bombs. Each a hundred times more potent than the ones used long ago in Japan. We killed their world.
Fifty years of scouring the surrounding stars, and we had finally destroyed their entire species. The Scorus were now merely a memory. A sour one.
__________________________________
This backstory, I feel is necessary for you to understand why we did what we did. I am one of the few dissenters, and I fear I may not live very much longer as a direct result.
We were contacted by a race called the "Humani" they referred to themselves as "The Heirs of Humanity". They claimed to owe their egalitarian society to an old probe which had been sent out by a more optimistic humanity. They had always yearned to make contact with their benefactors and live in universal brotherhood.
God...I wish we were worthy of such admiration. I find myself sobbing at the memory of what occurred.
Xenoism is no abberation. It is the norm. Especially in the military and government. We took their message of peace, and we followed them back to their home system....It was a massacre. We disabled what little navy they had, and we burned their world. We burned all their worlds.....An entire culture...women...children...all of them....gone.
Never meet your Gods. They might just be like us. They might be like us...
________________________________________________
/r/SirLemoncakes | As NASA's only face to potential alien communication, Roger Harms expected a slow and easy day at the office. He dressed every morning in the same style slacks and polo that his mother had bought him for his first big day at a workplace she could brag to all her friends about. After 28 years Roger gave up trying to explain to his mother and her slowly aging friends that he was no big hot shot scientist. Media relations and the occasional press conference where mother could call all her friends and say "My little Roggie is on the news again!" were all he had in his portfolio. In fact "littke Roggie" was aging much faster than his mother or any of her pampered friends. He was grey around the temples and the only thing to distract from his crows feet was tbe gut hanging to his mid-thigh.
Right now Roger's gut was dripping sweat and he was rubbing at the tiny lines sprouting from the corner of his eye. The amount of information he had been given in the last 24 hours was enough to make him consider early retirement. Laura had come into his office late last night to give him the news.
" The probes, Roger! The probes we sent out back in the 90s! They did their job! They worked! We have contact!"
Laura was never the type to play these office pranks, but Roger had already had enough for the day. He gave her a searing glance over his screen.
"Don't you remember the probes? Roger weren't you here when we did that?"
Of course Roger had been there. He had given the press conference on what an exciting time it was to shoot four unmanned probes into the great abyss hoping to relay what little information we Earthlings posess to a greater species. In fact it was this press conference, showing a younger and leaner Roger, that popped up on his screen.
That was when he realized that Laura wasn't just participating in office antics. Every news station in the world was replaying his conference from over 20 years ago. That's when Laura gave him the big blow to his hanging midsection: The President, the Director of NASA, and a few other world leaders had decided that Roger would be the perfect person to communicate with the alien species from this point forward. No, not just tell the press about what they said. In this day and age when transparency was demanded by the public, Roger was to do live-on-air interviews with an alien species.
Now, today, his Director was explaining how that would work. The alien species had already made contact through a series of codes in a NASA computer. Unlike anything we Earthlings (our word not theirs) expected, these were not highly intelligent creatures from other planets. In fact after their first attempt at communication we learned that they needed the technology in the probes to even figure out how to contact us.
The thing that worried Roger wasn't the live interviews. It wasn't talking to aliens. In fact he was pretty sure you couldn't even classify them as aliens because from what they sent through that computer, they weren't even of another planet. They were here. This whole time. Being studied by scientists. Being sliced and diced under microscopes. They considered us their gods and wondered why we did such terrible things to them and to each other.
This was the worrisome part. Roger was to communicate with a bunch of atoms and molecules, or so they had been called until now. Roger wasn't a scientist. What was he to say?
"Don't worry about that," the Director said," the experts will be in the wings coaching you through this. Tomorrow morning at 9am you will be, not just the face of the NASA media team, but the face. Of. The. Gods."
Roger turned pale. Someone had it out for him. Why would anyone pick a person who hadn't even tried for a promotion in 15 years to do such an important job? What did this mean for him? For the planet? If he were sitting and having a conversation on live television with his God whwt would he ask?
"Well," thought Roger "this is going to be a shit show."
| 2018-11-04T07:46:54 | 2018-11-04T07:06:45 | 26 | 16 |
[WP] The child meets your eyes and says,"You need somebody killed, don't you? I can do that for you, if you can afford it." | "You need somebody killed, don't you?"
The kid meets my eyes. He looks twelve and somewhere between driftwood and a cigarette. Sweaty, eyes glassy like he has a fever.
"I can do that for you, if you can afford it."
I try to stare back at him, all shaky snot-nosed fear. Try to meet his gaze but I can't. I can see, contrary to his hardened words, his own fear and my own reflected in it. Amplified.
"Hey, hey, hey. Don't be afraid. I know this isn't your first choice but what options do you have?"
He glances down, slipping a grubby hand into his hoodie pocket. Slipping a rusty box cutter out.
"I'll do it quick with this. I can do it quick now. No trouble." He tries his best not to sound needy, like it's no big deal, but I can here the whiny plead in his voice to match that look in his eyes.
"But, what am I going to do after it's all done? Where will I go? I won't have anything!" My breaths are little raspy moist puffs. I'm so afraid...but I need help.
He attempts a scoff. "You don't have anything now. And if I don't do it, you will have no future. The way I see it, this is the only way."
The doorknob rattles but does not turn. My father's voice wheedles from the other side.
*You have run away from home for the last time my little silly man. I have been so forgiving like I am apt to be. You have missed our private playtime for the third time. I am so sorry but we will have to remedy this like last year hmmm? No more outside time for you mister!*
The doorknob stops rattling. Then my dear father starts smashing away, kicking at the old wood above the knob.
The kid is right. This the only way.
I turn from the mirror, pushing back my hood. My hand is white knuckled sweaty clench around the box cutter, my blood rushing away from it, claiming no part in this treachery, no guilt of this deed.
The door gives a whimper, then submits to my father, sliding open.
| The child met my eyes and said, "You need somebody killed, don't you? I can do that for you, if you can afford it."
Her voice was slathered in a thick and swampy Cajun accent, as if the bayou itself had been given the ability to speak. I looked away from the depths in her gaze. Something inside them was drawing me in so I stared at the floor before answering.
"I need a few people killed, well, more than a few actually."
"Sounds like an expensive job. Have you considered what you'll have to give up to see it done?"
Truly, I had not. But I was willing to pay any amount to see justice done for what had been done to my home. To our home.
I looked back up, this time unafraid of the depths swirling behind the irises of what appeared at first glance to be merely another gulf-coast urchin.
"Yes. I'll pay your price. Just name it."
"Well now, that depends on a few things, who these people are and how many."
My chest tightened as I felt the dread come pouring back into it. I stammered, "I...I need the board of directors dead, the people who run the company that did this to my home, the people who spilled millions of gallons of oil into the gulf then covered it up with other poisonous chemicals. Them. I need THEM to pay for what they've done."
The child's eyes burned with what seemed like anger for just a second before returning to their still, dark state. She made me wait for what seemed like a very long time before answering.
"Actually," she said with a feral grin, "this one, I'll do for free." | 2014-10-06T14:12:12 | 2014-10-06T10:17:06 | 300 | 14 |
[WP] A priest returns home after a successful exorcism. His demon daughter is waiting for him there, angry that he removed her from someone’s body again. | Lambert made his way home, his feet failing to gain much traction on the slick, cobblestone street. In the mist that had descended upon the town, all that guided his way were the flickering lights of the lampposts.
The streets were deserted, as they often were.
Lambert clutched his Bible as he stood under the nearest light source, its towering frame barely illuminating a few feet before him. He scanned the area, searching for the next guidepost. Upon locating the faint ray emanating from his own stoop, he dashed across the road.
Out of nowhere, A car zoomed toward him. Lambert could do nothing more than dive forward to avoid certain peril. Honking and tearing past, the vehicle's driver thrust a middle finger out the window and called out something profane.
Shaking his head and exhaling heavily, Lambert gathered his things and walked the final few steps across the street.
He pressed open his front door and entered the familiar darkness. A flash of lightning behind him revealed the tally display on the wall above the coat rack.
*37.*
Sighing again, Lambert hung his coat and motioned to remove his shoes.
"Father," came a voice from the darkness, causing him to jump.
"Elizabeth," returned Lambert. "You're out of bed."
"I was enjoying our game tonight until I had a thought."
"What's that, my sweet?" Lambert shifted uneasily, the darkness obscuring his frame as his bit his lips and wiped his hands on his hips.
"Something was different tonight," she began, still keeping herself hidden. "You've never used the word 'foul' before."
The word foul echoed throughout the three-story townhouse, seemingly originating from all possible directions.
"It was--" Lambert tripped as he moved toward the staircase. "It was all part of the game, my darling."
"No." Elizabeth materialized atop the stairs, her face still concealed by the darkness. As her maroon robe waved in a wind whose source could not be determined, she lifted one finger and pointed down toward Lambert.
"You said it. You said, 'Out, foul demon!'"
Lambert tipped to the side, gripping the banister to ground himself. "Elizabeth, you misunderstand me. You see, your possession was much stronger than usual." Feigning control, he scowled disapprovingly as his daughter. "You know the rules: you cannot make anyone hurt themselves. You also cannot target the same home twice."
Elizabeth giggled, only the sound came from the kitchen on the first floor. Upstairs, she remained unmoving. "But Mr. Bellinger is a bad man, daddy. He hurts Ricky."
"It is not up to you to decide anyone's fate." Lambert began to tiptoe up the steps.
"And it's yours?" Elizabeth straightened her arms and fanned her fingers.
Lambert froze, unable to move.
"That power rests with God, and nobody else." A moment of silence passed, and still Lambert had control of nothing but his face. "Elizabeth, release me."
"You broke the rules, too, father. You're always telling me not to call anyone names."
Lambert scrambled to think of a way out. It had been six months since Elizabeth started exhibiting her... symptoms, and he had not yet had to exorcise himself. He was unsure he could.
Then, it dawned on him. He thought it was a stretch, but he had little more to lose.
"Don't you recall earlier in the evening?" he uttered, unsure of himself.
She descended one step, her face still cloaked. "I recall everything." She continued to approach.
"Then surely you remember when you made Mr. Bellinger cluck about like a chicken?"
Elizabeth giggled once more. This time, the sound reverberated in a full, never ending circle around Lambert's head.
"Mr. Bellinger is a silly man." She quickened her pace down the final few steps between them, finally revealing her flowing black hair and pale-faced, dark expression. "He is a coward, taking out his own insecurities on his family." Her lips formed a twisted smile. "I thought a few moments as a chicken would be quite clever."
"And it was," replied Lambert, praising the demonic playfulness of his demented daughter. "I thought it quite clever to play along, calling you a 'fowl' demon." He smiled back, his lip quivering and almost revealing his discomfort.
Elizabeth's twisted smile warped itself into a healthier variant. Color began to return to her cheeks. "Oh!" She called out as the echo of laughter began to fade from the apartment and focused itself on her position. "I do love a good homonym!"
In an instant, Lambert regained utility of his limbs, and the lights in their home jumped to life. As the space brightened, so did Elizabeth's hair and disposition.
She was his little, blonde princess once more.
Lambert smiled, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Wordplay, my sweet. Nothing more."
"Father, you're all sweaty and nervous. Are you okay? Do you need some tea?"
"Oh no," Lambert replied, waving his hands in front of him. "It is rather misty out, that's all. Are you ready for a bedtime story?"
Elizabeth smiled, erasing all memory of her previous demonic presentation. "That would be lovely."
As his daughter moved up the steps to return to her bed, Lambert considered how much longer he could keep it up. Before he joined her upstairs, he headed back downstairs and added to the tally.
*38.*
\-----
Happy October! I hope this was nice and spooky for you 😊
Thank you for reading! As always, feedback is certainly appreciated.
Head to my sub if you want to check out more of my stories. r/storiesbyclayton | Father Atkinson returned home a tired man. His once sturdy frame stood hollow, a tree devoured inside out. His face had grown wrinkled as bark; his calloused hands could barely grip the cross as he pounded the pulpit before his congregation.
They didn't know him. Not the true him--the man who scrambled to correct his daughter's misdeeds, who kept a flask right beside his bedroom Bible so that he'd not still be crying when the sun rose.
All they knew was the fire of his words as he preached a life he couldn't live, the bags beneath his eyes because his devotion knew no bounds.
Those late-night exorcisms had worn him down. Like a stump, once tall and proud, now a broken bit of what'd he'd been.
Each was harder than the last. His hands struggled to clutch the crucifix; his eyes blurred as he tried to read the incantations. Night after night. Possession after possession.
His hand trembled as he put the key to the lock. He winced as the door creaked open. Like walking on eggshells, he entered the dark foyer. Hung his coat. Ran a tired hand through his thinned hair. She slept this time so he could, too.
"Hello, daddy," a voice said from up the hallway.
"My goodness," he said, jumping when he saw the short, dark figure standing in the doorway to the kitchen. "Lucy, what did I tell you about startling me like that? Gonna give me a heart attack."
She giggled her high-pitched cackle that ended in those little snorts he'd once found so cute. "Might be best," Lucy said, and then she began to cackle again.
Father Atkinson bit his tongue and refrained from retorting. Kids said the damnedest things. He flipped on the light, revealing Lucy in her white nightgown and disheveled hair that fell over her face. Her nails were broken and jagged from scratching at the same place time and time again.
Father Atkinson caught his breath. Everybody was beautiful in their own way, his daughter most of all. He mustered an apologetic smile.
"I didn't mean to wake you," he said. "It's well past midnight. What are you still doing up?"
"Waiting for you, daddy," Lucy said. "What were you doing?" She cocked her head, smiled with too much teeth.
"I see that," Father Atkinson said. He didn't answer her question.
"You were punishing me again, daddy," Lucy said. "I thought I asked you not to do that."
Father Atkinson frowned. He clutched his coat as if it would protect him. "It's my job, Lucy. I do what I have to do."
He peered to the left into the living room, around Lucy into the kitchen. The babysitter was nowhere to be found. Maybe she'd fallen asleep in the family room. Maybe...
"She's alive," Lucy said.
Father Atkinson let out the breath he'd been holding. "Thank goodness."
"I'm not a murderer, daddy," Lucy said.
She smiled a smile that didn't reach her eyes--wide and sinister, forced and deceptive.
Father Atkinson gulped. "I know you aren't, sweetie."
"But you thought I might be, right? You're looking for Amanda."
Father Atkinson nodded. "Yes, dear. I'm looking for Amanda. Could you tell me where Amanda is and then head back to bed? It's her bedtime, too, and she has to drive home still."
"Oh, daddy," Lucy said.
A chill ran up Father Atkinson's spine. "Yes, dear?"
"I don't think Amanda wants to leave just yet."
"She doesn't?"
"Why don't I just show you her?" Lucy said.
Father Atkinson didn't move from beside the front door. With one hand, he reached into his coat and clutched the crucifix with trembling hands. He eyed the Bible on the coffee table in the living room, wondered if he could make it there before Lucy did.
"O... Okay, dear. Show me Amanda, please."
*Sleeping. She's just sleeping, and Lucy will show me where she fell asleep. Maybe they watched a movie. Played with dolls--wait, no. Not the dolls.*
"Come, Amanda," Lucy sang. Sickly sweet, that voice of hers.
Footsteps lurched through the family room. Into the kitchen. Amanda appeared in the doorway, eyes blank and white as the foyer walls. She teetered unsteadily, her back twisted at a gruesome angle. Her face was plastered with the same wide smile as Lucy's, and when Lucy lifted her arm towards Father Atkinson, Amanda's lifted, too.
"Here she is, daddy," Lucy said. "Since you don't like having to come home from work so late, I thought I could surprise you by bringing your work right here to our home."
*****
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated! | 2020-10-20T09:00:15 | 2020-10-20T08:05:28 | 169 | 123 |
[WP] You are the sole normal, unpowered student at a School for the Supernaturally Gifted. You were bullied once. Once. | As the class watched on in abject horror, I zoned out a little and thought about what brought me here. This school was supposed to "straighten me out" as dear old Dad put it - after all, if everyone else has superpowers and I don't I shouldn't ever be able to win a fight. And if I could only get into losing fights surely I'd be less interested in picking them.
Oh how daft that old prick was.
30 minutes ago, when I arrived, I was told the rules. No running in the halls, don't steal our shit, standard stuff really. But then we got onto rules around fighting... Like how if a super uses their power on a null like me for violence they can have their powers sealed away by the Bureau.
10 minutes ago when I walked into my first class, I got a good whiff of the smug supers and their superiority complexes. As soon as I was introduced they demanded to know what a "mere null" was doing in their "sacred halls" dirtying the place up. Now, if the last 20 schools have taught me anything it's two things: the first is that you must establish your place in the local pecking order, and the second is that someone is usually kind enough to volunteer to help you do that.
So when one of the neon haired morons with an anime haircut got in my face during the fuss, I decided to accept his help and see just how far the rules would let me go. See, fighting in a dispute *is* allowed here, but unlike me I don't think any of these posers have ever seen the inside of a gym that wasnt tailored to their powers.
Since I slapped this kid to the floor and started slowly breaking fingers, nobody has said a word. Nobody has even tried to stop me, though I doubt any of them know how without their *precious* powers to help. I figure I've got enough time before the teacher gets back with whatever help he thinks is coming to get through both hands.
Continuing to make unwavering eye contact with my new classmates, I smiled and addressed them.
"You know what? I think I'm going to like it at this school." | And so it happened, I couldn't let that slide. I mean, of course I couldn't. Why would I ? All those bastards thinking they're so cool, flaunting their skills in the hallway with no regards to other people's safety. I know it's the first time that I was bullied, but I 'll make it be the last.
His ugly face still remains clear in my mind. He had a smirk on his face while lifting me up with only his hand on my face. His eyes were squinting a bit as if to catch the every detail of my expression. Then the burning repeated multiple times until the bell rang. My ears couldn't forget the sound of laughter coming from his friends as they left nor could my face forget the heat, leaving me with burn marks all over my face.
Now, just my reflection in the mirror sufficed to steel my resolve. And now, I brought hell with me.
The next day, I came prepared. In front of his house, right when he left to go to school, I ambushed him. I kicked him on his back, made him fall on his face and tied both of his hands. Without giving him time to think, I started kicking him--once, twice, thrice and a final fourth time.
Leaving me with only the last step. Gasoline! Pouring gasoline all over his body. And just to finish things off, I bent down and whispered in his ear:"you can go now".
Fire spread in the surroundings but all I could pay attention to was his scream while leaving. | 2022-11-02T12:26:39 | 2022-11-02T08:03:37 | 83 | 58 |
[WP] The hero can slow down Time in a small bubble around himself. Unfortunately, the villain has the same ability. The world is now vexed with two people, in front of the U.N. building, having a slow-motion fistfight that will last 103 years. It affects Mankind in unexpected ways.
I'm very happy that everyone enjoyed this WP so much!
To clarify: the hero can project a time bubble about the size of a refrigerator a few feet in front of himself, ostensibly to capture a wrong-doer within it, while he himself stays in normal (faster) time. His opponent has the same power though. The bubbles have converged into 1 single bubble, trapping both opponents within it. | # Financial Times
# Stock Markets collapse by 30% as UN Assembly fight takes a new turn
**■ New York City - 30.04.2055**
This morning at around 5:30 AM the cameras observing the ongoing fight in front of the UN headquarters confirmed what experts have now been warning of for days: Professor Inferno's left hand stomach jab has indeed been a faint, and he is going for a high haymaker instead.
Based on pupil movement Timeout has not spotted the faint yet, and analysts predict that if he does not realize what is the Professor is planning by Tuesday, he only has a 20% chance of defending against the blow.
While nothing is quite certain as of yet, this new development apparently has investors worried that Inferno's attack might put Timout out of the fight for long enough to dash the remaining distance to the Inferno®Bomb lying about 30 feet behind Timeout's current position and activate it, resulting in the nuclear annihilation of the US East Coast.
The earliest expected date for the destruction is still at least 6 months away, but the news nonetheless caused a minor panic and an immense loss of trust in financial assets from that areas, creating chain reaction that made the Doe Jones drop by 32.7% from five to eight AM. This is the biggest collapse since Timout was barely in time able to wrench Professor Inferno's remote detonator out of his hand in January 2033. At the time many cities in the area were preparing to issue an evacuation order when disaster was adverted during the last week.
President Owens has issued a declaration urging people to remain calm, but uncertainty in the stock market is expected to continue until the end of this week, when analysts predict they will be able to say more about just how hard the current blow will affect Timeout.
Meanwhile the current administration's proposal to construct a containment bunker around the site of the fight was met with further criticism by experts and politicians alike, with opposition leader Strall calling it a harebrained scheme with almost no chance of success, and further insinuated that is a transparent attempt by the president to distract from his bad handling of the ongoing giant mutant spider crisis in Florida.
"If there was any chance at containing a blast of this magnitude, we would have started to build it 20 years ago!", she said in an interview, and complained that so far the government had yet to present any evidence that the 'new blast resistant materials' proposed by the president actually exist. | As the world's greatest villain and earth's mightiest hero continue to clash, Tim Timwell, aged 37, walks his dog, a miniature schnauzer named Tom. The route, going past the UN building, is nice and flat, paved the whole way through. Tim and Tom, Tom and Tim, just meandering about town again, slowly of course, because at the ripe old age of 14, Tom doesn't go anywhere fast anymore.
With great effort, Tom, shambling on the three-and-half legs he has left, takes a look at his master with his good eye. Catching this, Tim, ever the optimist, reminds his dog they have somewhere to be. "Don't you worry you old motherfucker, " Tim says with a gentle lilt "I can see those assholes from over here." The two make it to the end of the block. Kicking aside some blaze-orange cones for Tom, who doesn't need the help, Tim squeezes his bulk past the pylons and under the safety tape.
Twenty years later, there isn't much left to say about the story of Tim and Tom, because, quite simply, it's not over yet. Pick a sunny day and take a walk over past the U.N building over past Pulaski Avenue. In the same 40-foot bubble where the Mind Crow and the Mauve Avenger are destined to fight for the next 81 years, you can spot what most residents think is a statue. Two figures, sitting on a bench, side-by-side. Man and dog, dog and man. Two friends resting together after a long walk, both not yet ready to for their time together to come to an end. | 2021-04-30T09:15:10 | 2021-04-30T08:59:41 | 234 | 164 |
[WP] you travel to your best friends house and are hanging out like normal, doing what you guys usually do. Excusing yourself to use the restroom, you absentmindedly look behind the shower curtain and discover the bloody, lifeless corpse of the best friend whose house you are at.
Your shoes and things are in the room with whatever is out there. | "Jerry?"
My brain stopped. I couldn't think. Jerry's dead. I am looking at his body. Jerry's dead. But I was just with Jerry and he is *definitely* alive. This doesn't make any sense.
I sat down. Think. Gotta think. Options. Two Jerrys. One is dead. Jerry doesn't have a twin. I'd know if Jerry had a twin. Plus, why the hell would Jerry invite me over for MarioKart if he knew his twin was dead in the tub?
OK, no twins. So one is real Jerry and one is fake Jerry. If real Jerry is out there, wouldn't the same problem apply? Wouldn't the real Jerry maybe mention that there was a dead copy of him in the freaking tub?
Wait. Maybe this is a prank. I looked back at the body. Mannequin? This Jerry is pretty pale. *That's because he's dead, stupid*. I have to touch it. Goddamn it.
I reached out, poked the body quickly with one finger, and pulled back. Dang it. I was too focused on the creepiness of touching it to determine if it was real. Touch it again. I touched again. The skin gave. It was room temperature. It wasn't plastic. This is a real fucking body.
OK. OK. There is a bloody body next to me in the tub. It looks like Jerry. A living person who looks like Jerry is in the living room, waiting to trounce me at Rainbow Road (the bastard knows I hate that level). I don't *think* the real Jerry would forget to tell me that he killed a guy and stashed him in the tub. So this is the real Jerry here. And there is something out there that looks like him. Something out there that killed him.
This is so messed up. I have to get out of here. OK. Think. Out the door, down the hall, and out the front door. Don't stop. Don't think. Ten seconds, tops. I can make it. I won't make it. Breathe. In and out. In and out. Just do it. On the count of three. One, two...
There was a knock on the door. "Dude, you fall in?"
I won't make it. | I stagger back from the shower, nearly vomiting. I think to call for Blue (short for Blutarch) but decide against it. After all, what if Blue is the thing in the tub? It's several minutes before I decide to go back into the living room. I tried to appear natural, but Blue sees that something is wrong.
"Hey man? What's the problem?"
"Huh? Oh... um... no-nothing."
He leans back in his chair. "So, you saw the body in the shower huh?"
I hang my head, resigning myself to my fate.
"Yeah, turns out some demon is trying to drag me to Hell the hard way instead of just killing me like the others-"
"Others?"
"I never told you about that?" He holds up a necklace, fairly simple thin iron chain. He's had it since before I knew him. "Yeah, I stole this from Satan a while back. Gives me some sweet powers but unfortunately acts like a bit of a homing beacon for demons. Can't just kill me, or it takes a new form. So they've been trying to physically drag me to Hell since."
"What's so great about it?"
He smiles. "Ever heard of the Unholy Trinity? Probably not. Not exactly the sort of thing they talk about in Sunday School. In that case, Drew, I would like to introduce you to Lucifer. The light-bringer." His hair burst into flames, not even giving him pause, the glow flickering in his eyes. I stagger back.
"Th- th- that's so many shades of amazing!"
His head extinguishes. "I know right? Can't believe I forgot to tell you about that."
"Want to go light stuff on fire?"
"You know it!" | 2015-04-25T18:44:34 | 2015-04-25T17:41:02 | 67 | 24 |
[WP] You are a teenager with the ability to measure how "Dangerous" people are on a scale from 1 to 10 just by looking at them. A normal child would be a 1, while a trained man with an assault rifle might be a 7. Today, you notice the unassuming new kid at school measures a 10. | So he walked into my 3B class, just like anyone else would. Kinda handsome, I guess, but overall pretty ordinary. Until he turned and I caught the number floating over his shoulder.
The big one-O.
I'm pretty sure I made a noise that would make a mouse call me a pussy, and I sweated through my T-shirt in five seconds flat. I had realized that the numbers I see could theoretically go that high, but the worst I had seen was a five on that kid who went to juvie.
I started looking around the room, wondering if I could make it out the window before the bullets started flying. But he sat down just like any other schmuck and the most deadly thing to come out of his backpack was a mechanical pencil, and only 0.5mm at that.
The rest of the day, hell, the rest of the week, I cramped up in my stomach whenever I saw him, but he made friends easy enough and the school-shooter-persona didn't seem to stick upon prolonged examination. I did consider calling the cops, but what was I gonna say? "Yes, officer, my magic danger-number-vision topped out on student John Doe over here, so I would feel a lot better if you arrested him for me." That's how you get a free trip to a place with three square meals per day and all the long-sleeved jackets you could want.
As the weeks turned to months, the terror of seeing the ten diminished, and I took less stock in my power. The kid was almost disappointingly normal. I graduated and didn't hear from him for a few years, other than that he went to some big state school a few hours away.
Next time I saw him, he was on TV, standing in front of a crowd of protesters, yelling about how congress was defunct, and needed to be gutted. And, hell, I couldn't disagree with him. At this point I figured his rating meant he would go extremist and blow something up, but again, I couldn't call the authorities on a hunch like that. Besides, I'm sure the FBI/CIA already had a file on him bigger than my textbook.
Then he got elected. Just a small state legislature spot, but it was enough to embolden his speeches. Again, I did nothing, hoping he would actually get into congress and get politically cock-blocked like every other young, enterprising politician.
Next thing I knew, he was Speaker of the House. I started getting very worried again, but I knew it was beyond my control. Just a few months later, the president and VP were both killed in immaculate, simultaneous terrorist attacks. The new president declared a righteous war against the Middle Eastern nations unfortunate enough to have the appropriate extremists within their borders. Which, funnily enough, was most of them.
As the war escalated, the president quickly stripped congress of obstructive factions, and soon the only representatives left were those who could march in step with the White House.
Now, I'm on my way to a meeting to determine my ineligibility for the draft. The bullet I put in my leg a few months ago helps my case. | “I had no idea what the numbers meant at first, but everyone had one. The highest I had seen, before I knew what they were, was my uncle, a Vietnam veteran, five. I learned what they really meant two years ago, walking home after my first day of middle school, a passing car swerving all over the road, had to be going at least 60 miles an hour, the driver was a seven. The car flew through a house, leaving nothing but a hole in the wall and smoking scrap metal. According to the news that night all the passengers and the owner of the house had been killed, those numbers measured danger, and from then on I steered clear of the high ones.
Flash forward until now, a couple months into my freshman year of high school. Most kids aren't all that dangerous, usually around a two; some of the meek scrawny nerds are a one, and some of the linebackers who look like they've been taking steroids for years are a three. A new kid shows up and flies under everyone's radar but mine, six.
This guy isn't some stereotypical gangbanger or hoodrat, just a normal looking kid who looks like he might have moved from a neighborhood much more posh than this one. I keep my distance as usual, but resolve to keep an eye on him. Nothing seems to go wrong, in fact he's pretty popular, but I still become more wary of him, of his number, of seven, of eight.
I'd never seen anyone's number change before, but this guy's just keeps going up at record pace. A day ago it happened, *ten.* I had been to a prison once to visit my idiot brother who got busted for selling weed, and nobody there was even that high. I don't know what this fucker is planning, but with a number like that it's got to be a national security issue or something.”
This journal entry was recovered from the home of US Department of Defense supernatural human subject #2718, who was recovered following a school shooting incident. We have determined that the numbers he sees are likely correlated not only to the danger a person poses, but also faces. Further experimentation and interviews are required to determine any potential applications of this ability. Subject is deemed safe to return to society, following debriefing and signature of non-disclosure agreement.
(I kinda suck at writing endings, but I gave it a shot. My first non FF/CW post here!)
| 2014-11-29T13:14:54 | 2014-11-29T12:35:37 | 322 | 199 |
[WP] North Korea is a veritable paradise on earth but we have no idea because of aggressive propaganda and out of context quotes of the nk leadership.
The reality is the exact opposite of what the West think is true. The truth is being kept from us for fear that we would revolt if we discovered the amazing North Korean social system which provides a utopia to all of its citizens. | The young lieutenant slammed the foreign newspaper onto the conference table, then quickly attempted, and failed, to compose himself. An unflattering picture of Dear Leader leered from its pages, accompanied by a mocking headline. The elder Chairman, ever patient, allowed himself a faint smile while he waited for the predictable tirade from his protege.
"Mr. Chairman, it's intolerable!"
"And yet we must tolerate it."
"But the claims of famine, when our people..."
"Yes, they do not understand how our advances in nutrition can feed our people without the need for so much food. The Americans see us with no cheap hamburgers and think us hungry. They see us with no sugary drinks and think us thirsty. They die early, fat and miserable, while we live long and healthy lives."
"They think us warlike, when they are the ones who have killed thousands and thousands..."
"I know, I know. We have to make these threats to keep them from invading, that's the only language they understand. I must give Dear Leader credit, he's played them to perfection. We're intimidating enough that they see the high cost of invasion, yet not so intimidating that they feel they must. We've given them just the boogeyman they need for their politics of fear, they'd be fools to give that up so easily. All we must do, once in a while, is fire a missile into the ocean where it cannot harm anyone. Dear Leader controls them himself, you know, he quite enjoys it."
The lieutenant finally found the words to express his true concern. "But Mr. Chairman -- they don't respect us."
"Ah!" The old man had been waiting for this moment. "What would they respect? Guns? We have no use for them, other than for show. Technology? Our technology simplifies our lives, theirs complicates theirs. They show themselves maps of our country at night and wonder where the lights are, and never imagine that we can see the stars and they cannot. What would you have us do to ourselves to gain their respect?"
| there is always only space for half of an existing population to be happy. 50% of the entire country lives in bliss.
The remaining 50% are jailed for even the most minor of infractions. and our reoked of their citizenship. The age at which all infractions are imposed is at 18 years old. By then you are expected to have learned all of the laws, internalized them.
Jaywalk? jail. cigerette butt on the street? jail. Go home after 12? Jail. Push someone? Jail. Small scuffle? Jail.
There is an all encompassing surveillance system so no one is ever wrongly accused.
Social order allows for the most effecient exchanges of services.
surprisingly the remaining 50% who follow the law down to the letter, despite all of the limitation imposed, have been measured as having seratonin levels 50% higher than the rest of the known world. Pyschological tests have shown they display greater degrees of resilience in set backs, feel more secure and are exceedingly and unneccessarily generous with their time and resources.
utopia has been achieved for the law abiding citizens.
fear is a misunderstood tool.
It creates order.
And out of order, there is happiness.
-
edit.
Thanks guys.
-
Precursor to absolute surveillance.
http://doppellab.media.mit.edu/ | 2014-06-26T08:39:12 | 2014-06-26T05:58:58 | 260 | 163 |
[WP] As a young child you made an innocent wish to be granted a power that in hindsight was just whimsical and silly. Now you have grown up but you still have the power - how do you use it now as an adult? | When I was fourteen, my wish came true. For about a year, I had wished as hard as I could, every single day, to be able to Force Jump. For what seemed like hours, I'd stand in the driveway and try to jump up to the balcony outside my room, easily twice my height above the asphalt. One cloudy Thursday afternoon, it worked. I focused all my willpower on reaching the edge of the railing, hunched down, and launched myself further than I had hoped. I landed on the roof, and surprised, I couldn't keep my footing. I tumbled down the edge and fell onto the porch. My mother got home about a half hour later and drove me to the hospital. I had broken an arm, and I was grounded for a month.
A couple days later, I got out of the hospital. I was the big thing around school for about twenty-four hours. The crazy kid who had climbed up onto his roof and fallen. I enjoyed the attention, and when it started to fade I got careless. I told a girl I had a crush on, Laura, what had actually happened. She laughed for what seemed like days, and rushed off to tell her friends. Red-faced, I ran out of the school and into an adjacent field. I hadn't tried to jump since the successful attempt, and this time, filled with embarrassment, I jumped even further. I landed near a half-dozen grazing cows, and somehow my legs absorbed the impact without a problem. The cows looked up, surprised, but after a moment went back to chewing their cuds. I jumped several more times that day, and started to get better at it.
I was in my early thirties now, and had become a successful young architect. My high school long jump record still held. I exercised every day, but I would only jump on Sundays, my "alone-time day." My abilities had surpassed my wildest teenage dreams; I could now jump nearly a mile and land utterly unscathed. I had a girlfriend, Nadia, whom I had been seeing for almost two years. I hadn't told anyone since Laura. I don't know where Nadia thought I went those days. On a good Sunday I could jump to the peak of a local mountain, scan the landscape, and take off in a random direction, jumping again and again until I was in another state, almost devoid of fatigue. It was difficult to gauge where I would land until I began to descend. Once I was in the air I had very little control, but at this point in my life I was extremely familiar with the landscape for hundreds of miles.
On this particular Sunday, I woke up around six, careful not to stir Nadia, made a cup of coffee, and stretched. At seven, I set my empty mug down on a patio table and scanned my surroundings. No one was looking. I jumped, aiming near the peak of a nearby butte, where no one would be at this hour. Twenty seconds later, I landed, a cloud of dust rising at my feet to mark the beginning of the day's journey. I looked around, considering where to go next, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a figure in the sky growing closer. I focused on it.
It was a human, flying through the sky. As it got nearer, I saw that it was a woman. She landed in her own cloud of dust, crouched down, her dark hair wild from the wind. As she rose, my heart rose to my throat and I could barely croak out my disbelief.
"Nadia?" | The genie floated before the slight little girl, patiently waiting for an answer as she hummed her indecision.
"I wish," she said, "I wish that I could make cookies appear whenever I wanted."
With a brilliant sparkling, the genie disappeared with the dream and the child woke up.
Deciding to test this new power out, she looked at her nightstand and wished for a big plate of chocolate chip cookies to appear - and POOF! - There they were. She flashed a gap-toothed little grin.
Having the ability to eat cookies whenever she wanted was fantastic at first. Needed to bribe her brother? Cookies. Didn't like her school lunch? Cookies. Friends wanted to trade snacks? Cookies. The perks were great. But she wasn't expecting the reactions of her classmates.
"Why do you have so many cookies all the time? It's weird."
"I bet it's because she's a fat pig. Look at her. She can't stop!"
"Haha yea! Oink oink oink!"
"Look out, it's the cookie monster!"
"If you're talking monsters, she's more like Godzilla!"
Suddenly being able to have cookies whenever she wanted didn't seem so awesome anymore.
She wished that she had wished for something cooler, like the ability to fly, or laser eye beams, or something. In fact, she grew to regret her wish so much that it was better if she hadn't made any wish at all. She learned to forget her powers.
She grew up to hate cookies, and sweets of any kind. She went on, and lived a pretty ordinary life. She learned to settle, nay, *aim* for ordinary.
One day, while the woman was crossing the street home from work, she saw a group of girls laughing and smiling. At first, she thought that they were just kids having fun. But when she looked again, she saw that the girl in the middle wasn't laughing and smiling like the others. This one had her eyes cast down and looked as if she might cry.
"You're so fat. Why do you have to be fat?"
"Yeah, I bet you could be pretty if you tried harder."
"Guys, it's not her fault if she can't control herself around pizza."
"Yeah guys, it's not her fault she turns into a pig everytime."
She marched right up to the group. "There you are! Your mother has been looking all over for you! You were supposed to be home 15 minutes ago," she said, kneeling down and putting her hands on the girl's shoulders, "You're going to be late for soccer practice."
The other girls apparently lost interest and dispersed.
"Thank you miss, but I don't know you. I shouldn't be talking to strangers--"
The lady smiled, and held out her hand. All of a sudden, a handful of chocolate chip cookies appeared. The girl smiled with wonder. | 2015-03-07T00:36:26 | 2015-03-06T23:01:15 | 182 | 130 |
[WP] "This potion will give you the body that your heart desires, the body that will bring you true and lasting happiness. But be warned: don't expect beauty. I've seen men become literal monster from the darkness in their hearts. Happy monsters, but monsters nevertheless." | Purple mixture sticks to my fingers like poison. I lick the remainder.
My veins fire up, then go cold, and with arms slamming against leather bindings that bite into my skin, I know it's working. My heart fights free of my chest but only for a moment, in the next I slam back into the red dentist chair blood and snot decorating a once white t-shirt.
The silence is punctuated with my breaths.
"H-how do you -are you okay?" the doctor says.
I could be a million dollar man or a werewolf and slash his throat open with my new found claws. There was only up for someone like me, a man that knew no bounds. He'd said the potion would turn me into something more, specifically, whatever my heart desired. A heart of fury and skin of steel, a god, a superhero.
He gives the door an uneasy glance. So I'd become a monster that could scare him with such ease. I could let him run, give him a head start before the beast caught the lamb. A lion doesn't play with its food anymore than I should.
"I'm a God," I tell him.
The doctor gulps, eyes darting between me and the exit, his forehead leaks sweat fragranced with fear. I've never seen a man so scared. "Diagnostics," he rushes the words from his mouth, "blood pressure, sight, sound."
"I'm fine," I say.
He stumbles to his feet. "Safety, safety first."
I slam my forearms against the bindings and feel the leather stretch against skin. If they want an animal, I'll give them one. Each slam tears a little bit more from my arms, each stroke an act of power, and them I'm gasping, useless. "Why isn't it working? The hell did you do to me?" I growl.
The fool fumbles his stethoscope.
"Answer me!"
He trips over his legs, onto the observation chair. I skewer his emotions back to fear. His trembling fingers snap around the handle of a mirror and he inches it towards my face.
My smile is wild, anticipating magnificence.
And all that looks back at me is me. The same me that was there before I took the liquid.
"Why?" I ask.
The doctor shakes his head. "Your heart only desires you. Y-you simply became yourself, more of yourself."
I scream.
| Part1: Through the Looking Glass
"This potion will give you the body that your heart desires, the body that will bring you true and lasting happiness. But be warned: don't expect beauty. I've seen men become literal monsters from the darkness in their hearts. Happy monsters, but monsters nevertheless."
I paused at the sudden seriousness of her tone. Never before had I seen Natalie with a look on her face so dire and full of concern. But even in the darkness of the tent she used to conduct her business I could see that concern was not so much for me, but the fear of what I might become.
"I'll be careful. I promise" I took the potion in hand and with a flick of my thumb the glass cork flew across the space. I widened my maw and slammed back the concoction as if it were my first ever shot of moonjuice. My eyes watered and my vision began to fade as my consciousness slipped away. As it did, I wondered what I might become: A more handsome version of myself? A stronger more agile me? A creature of some sort; a Nightwalker or one of the They? I began to feel as if an intense fire was washing over me and all of a sudden as the cork shattered on the ground I arrived back at reality.
Standing across from me still, with braids in her hair and the multicoloured gown of her traditional lands the girl who always smelt of incense and lavender stood petrified, a look of horror strewn across her face. I tried to speak but the potion had burned my throat to a close. Speech was impossible right now. I reached out a limb in the eery dark and tore the silken fabric that lay upon the mirror beside her. [In it stood..] | 2016-12-04T21:29:26 | 2016-12-04T21:08:35 | 40 | 13 |
[WP] Our behaviors in video games are held against us when we die. Saint Peter is going over the list of acts that are denying you entrance to heaven.
| "Next!" The man sitting behind the desk said, signaling me to come forward. He extended his hand. "I'm Peter. Nice to meet you." He was friendly enough, but clearly ready to get business taken care of.
"Leroy." I replied, shaking his hand. "When you said your name is 'Peter', is that like Saint Peter?"
"Good. You've heard of me." He said with a smile. "That saves me a lot of time wasting explaining the same concept over and over again. I'm here for eternity, but I still can't stand inefficiency, you know?"
"So you decide if I get into Heaven?" I asked, wanting to make sure we were on the same page.
"Bingo." St. Peter answered, pulling out a giant leather bound book. "Everything you have ever done, both good and bad, is chronicled here. I'll be honest with you, you were a pretty good person but there is one major problem with your file."
"What's that?" I tried really hard to think back, but I've done a lot of dumb shit in my time. It was tough to pinpoint just one thing that stood out over the rest.
"Your conduct in video games." Saint Peter replied, an ominous look covering his face.
I laughed, looking for any hint of a smile because I knew he was yanking my chain. Just a little friendly hazing on my way to heaven. Saint Peter wasn't as amused.
"You think this is a joke?" He asked, disgusted. "You get a chance to plead your case, but if you don't want to take this seriously I can make the ruling now and send you on your way."
"I'm sorry. I thought you were joking. No one takes what people do in video games seriously." I tried to explain in a panic. "I never did anything bad to anyone outside the framework of a game."
"Does August of 2005 ring a bell?" Saint Peter asked. "Did anything happen then?"
"I don't know what you are talking about. I didn't do some terrible thing. This is all a mistake!!!" I couldn't figure out what he was talking about.
"Really?" Saint Peter asked in disgust. "Let me jog your memory then." He began to read from my book. 'Alright. Time's up. Let's do this!!!'
My heart immediately sank. "Oh, no." I muttered, as I realized where this was going. "I'm fucked."
"LEEROY JENKINS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Saint Peter finished. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"At least I have chicken?" I just couldn't help it.
"NEXT!!!!" Saint Peter yelled at the next poor soul in line as he stamped 'Hell' on my paperwork.
| Saint Peter looked down at Stephen, his glasses on his nose. He exhaled and continued.
"Okay, Stephen. You do understand where you are?"
"Yes, Yes I do. "
"Okay, so you know, and understand we know everything, ever, in the history of ever, correct?"
"Yes, I do."
"Okay, so we're going over your behaviors you exhibited in video games, and you are denying, that you've never harmed a single thing in a video game. Ever. "
Saint Peter and looked down to Stephen. Stephen looked around confused, shrugging his shoulders.
"Not a single soul."
Saint Peter huffed . He clicked underneath his pottium and descending from above a large screen made it's way besides Saint Peter. Another button clicked and a video started playing. Saint Peter continued.
"So you don't remember hitting this man of color with a baseball bat for 7 straight minutes?" asked Saint Peter pointing to a screen that showed a man being another with a baseball bat.
"No, I don't recall." said Stephen.
Saint Peter growled. "You don't remember this, where you got into a motor vehicle engaging in a pursuit with local law enforcement after you mowed down who knows how many people! You don't recall?"
"Nope."
"What about this, here's another clip where you're just watching a video of one of the characters removing articles of their clothing to reveal large amounts of their skin. Do you remember?"
"No. I don't recall."
Saint Peter looked in awe. He hung his head and brought it back up, his eyes gazing at Stephen.
"Stephen, we have everything recorded. I don't even want to go into the details of what you did with dogs. Or your family. Look Stephen, you're going to hell regardless."
Saint Peter clicked a button, a opening opened up beneath Stephen, dropping him from the cloud he stood upon. Saint Peter jotted onto a notebook, putting his pen down he reach over for a Xbox controller.
"Ah, time to relax and play some Grand Theft Auto. "
| 2014-12-11T14:26:29 | 2014-12-11T11:59:08 | 65 | 13 |
[WP]everyone has a sigil on their body that represents powers that were bestowed onto humanity after the rapture of the Milky Way. The bullies at school always pick on you because you never used your power, but you’ve had enough. Now they are going to find out why your sigil is a plain old circle | "You made me drop my drink." The girl's shoes were wet, covered in the drink I'd accidentally knocked out of her hands. "What're you gonna do about it?" Her voice was low, menacing, almost a hiss, and that was when I realised who it was and my eyes went wide. An apology wouldn't cut it, not with her. Even if I bought her new shoes and a new drink right that instant, it wouldn't be enough. What she wanted, what she always wants from me, is *blood*.
Ignoring the bottle on the ground between us, Rebecca advanced the few steps to get within arm's reach of me, rolling up her left sleeve as she did so. On her forearm burned her sigil, a group of jagged red lines that resembled a three-taloned claw. Her strength was fuelled by her anger, and she literally wore her heart on her sleeve - the last time I saw her sigil that dark, she broke two of my ribs in a single punch. Something had really pissed her off today and my clumsiness was simply the straw breaking the camel's back. Well, that and my apparent lack of a power.
I opened my mouth and desperately tried to come up with something, anything, that wouldn't require me to visit Mark with his healing sigil, but before I could make a noise her hand shot out and grabbed my neck. I could see her sigil up close now, and it was turning a deep crimson, explaining how she'd gained the strength to lift me clean off the floor.
"You're not just useless," she she growled, as a crowd began to gather. "You're actually *detrimental* to society." She squeezed, and I began to asphyxiate. "So I'll ask you again." She punched me with the other hand, softly.
"What." Again, harder.
"Are." This hit actually hurt.
"You." The next knocked my head to the side, and the crowd gasped. I could hear a couple of people shouting my name.
"Gonna." Right in the ear, and I could no longer hear anything at all.
"Do." My vision was going from the lack of oxygen, but for once my head was clear.
"About." I couldn't feel the pain. All I could feel was anger, and resentment, and that the world was cruel. Cruel to give the power of theft to someone who loved giving.
"It." The fist came swinging in, but I caught it in one hand and crushed it. Rebecca screamed and dropped me, not because of the pain but because she'd lost the strength to hold my weight off the ground any longer. Her sigil was still dark, but as she watched it vanished, vanished completely, fading away into nothingness.
I lifted my fringe, and underneath was no longer an empty circle. Contained within it was a group of jagged lines that resembled a three-taloned claw. And it was coloured pure black. | “I’ll show them my true powers” I said looking at my hand, snickering knowing they will finally face my wrath. The horn of the school bus signifying the start of my hell again.
The school bus arrives, the moment I ascend the stairs, I trip on air, falling face first unable to stop my fall with my hands. The routine of the day, Robin with his web sigil, binding my hands together and Ken with his ability to manipulate friction. Laughters soon filled the bus as I shuffle to my seat.
Tasting blood in my mouth from the busted lip, sitting alone, with the bullies constantly at my back, kicking my chair, the usual.
The moment we arrive at the school, I quickly exit the bus before Ken puts his greasy hands on the stairs again. The peace before the storm, everything goes normally until the first 3 classes about sigil manipulation ends, then it’s as though the Teachers all vanish, because it’s the time where recess starts.
The moment I grabbed my tray, it was already filled with ants, the usual, I quickly ate what was less crawling with ants, trying to not cringe at what I just ate as per usual.
No place is safe, but at least in the courtyard passerby might stop if the beating goes too far, but as per usual a twack and a kick, I’m left bloody and bruised on the floor, looking at the sky again. The usual routine, but today I’ll show them my true power. Another internal monologue, the bell rings and hell is over, we return to class again.
Sometimes I think to myself maybe my sigil makes me invisible, the Teachers never seem to realise the bleeding and bruise that are so visible on me, but that’s just the usual routine. Time always passes quickly when you are enjoying it, the bell rings again, signifying the end of the day. Now I’ll show them my true power. I stood up, raising my hand up and declare that I’ll finally use it, my ultimate power. My plain circle sigil glows, the powers activated, the jaws of everyone around me drops as my vision goes dark. “It’s finally here!” I thought to myself, triumphantly.
“I’ll show them my true powers” I said looking at my hand, snickering knowing they will finally face my wrath. The horn of the school bus signifying the start of my hell again. | 2020-02-26T09:25:14 | 2020-02-26T09:00:31 | 17 | 11 |
[WP] After WW3 and a century of rebuilding, the world has been at peace for 300 years. We've let go of our violent and aggressive tendencies and abolished war. You are the leader of an alien invasion that sees the Earth as an easy target; but soon you learn we can revert to our warlike past easily. | Humanity was amazed by the presence of extraterrestrials. They were new. They were exciting. As a species, we were done evolving. We had discovered every scientific breakthrough available to us and our meager resources. We had mapped our observable universe and pushed the limits of our existence.
We had philosophized and reached enlightenment too many times to count. War had been abolished and scholars had been normalized. We were a peaceful people.
We were a bored people.
So when the aliens appeared from beyond our star, we were excited. We presented them with the best of our technology. We serenaded them with the best of our recreational culture. We were more than ready to accept their strange mannerisms and their weird, faster than light spacecraft. We were ready for them to break our boredom.
And then the creatures, lowly and vile and insignificant cretins as they were, fired on us. We weren't ready for that. Solid beams of searing white light speared from the heavens like lightning, burning and exploding and tearing. Major cities went up in flames. Precious libraries and databases were reduced to rubble in almost no time at all.
Fathers lost daughters. Mothers lost sons. Brothers held sisters and sisters held brothers. Desperate calls were made across the planets as families and friends desperately tried to reach others. We were broken. We were grieving.
But then, you made the one critical mistake. An envoy, a single envoy with only two soldiers, was sent down to one of our broken cities. It trailed over the debris that used to be our centers of knowledge and plucked a single human child, no more than six, from the still warm corpse of his mother. It held the boy aloft, and we heard the soldiers cackle at our helplessness. You thought us weakened. An easy race to subjugate when faced with our fettered young and your obvious superiority.
So lost in your 'superiority' were you that you didn't see the broken shiv of wood in the child's hand. With a snarl, he pierced it through your pathetic carapace and downed your envoy. Your soldiers didn't have the time to react before we were on them as well. They were taken down in seconds.
I'll let you know this now, scum. We didn't plan such a thing. We simply reverted to what felt right.
And our scientists sure felt right. They got to analyze your envoy's spaceship. I know things aren't looking so well for your troops on the ground, but we will join you in space soon enough.
I bet you're wondering why your light beams aren't as devastating as they once were. We remembered trench warfare. We can hide under our planet's crust, where your weapons can't pierce, for as long as we need.
We haven't had a soldier in many years, but every day we find more lieutenants and generals, natural born military leaders, sprung up from our ranks.
So thank you, aliens. Though it was not how we imagined it, you have definitely made things more interesting for us. Your one mistake was not annihilating us when you had the chance.
Be ready, filth. Because we survived, and we are no longer bored. | "So here's what we do men," Captain Averal started as the ships started pulling out of the water, "they think we're gonna let them go, we're gonna let them fly away because we're scared of 'em, are we scared of em?"
​
"SIR NO SIR!" The sailors replied.
​
"Are we scared of those buggy bastards?"
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"SIR NO SIR!"
​
"And what are we going to do?"
​
"SQUASH THEM SIR?"
​
"That's right, that's right," Averal took a deep breath and gazed up at the sky, there was a moment of peace before he heard the whistling of missiles overhead, the streaked through the air, built from old blueprints that had been recovered from museums. "Boys and girls," Averal put on his protective goggles, "it's time to be a janitor and clean up."
​
"SIR YES SIR!" the sailors shouted but it was drowned out by the retreating ships being slammed by the barrage that had been fired minutes before. There ships that hadn't been hit yet shook as they seemed to try to change course. Maybe it was against alien convention to shell a fleeing enemy, maybe it was against their pretty little rules they'd kept referencing, but this was Captain Averal's planet and the home to everyone that he liked. Along with Averal there were millions that had the same thoughts as him, get off our planet, and burn for every crop-circle you've left in the past thousand years.
​
Command spoke in Averal's ear. Frantic panicked words asking who had approved the fire of the anti-air after a treaty had been reached. Washington had burned but the counterattack from the humans had broken a lot of rules they didn't know about. It had scared the bugs and they had settled for peace at the first chance.
​
Everyone had agreed to the command on the field, every single ship that had been deployed agreed to fire when ready, every soldier on the beach agreed to fire when the signal was given. Averal had agreed to take the fall for a lot of it for his commanding officers but even the people he admitted to knew that he wasn't the only person behind this. The human race wasn't ready for the war to be over.
​
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​ | 2019-02-26T08:20:01 | 2019-02-26T07:06:44 | 1,328 | 144 |
[WP] You are Sisyphus, the man forever cursed to push a boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down when you reach the top. You've just reached the top again, but the boulder hasn't rolled down. Having long ago gotten used to the routine, this understandably freaks you out. | Hades, god of the Underworld, stood watching from a distance.
"Dear, what are you up to?" He turned to his wife, Persephone. "It will be time for supper soon and you still haven't walked Cerberus."
"Got a little caught up on an experiment, darling." He pointed a finger out and she followed it. "Do you know who that is?"
She looked out to where a man was pushing a boulder up a hill. "Sisyphus, isn't it? I remember him. Terrible man."
"One and the same. He's been pushing that boulder for years. I'm getting worried that he's just bored with it so I'm trying something a touch different."
She watched as he pushed the boulder almost to the top. "This should be interesting." At the top, he pushed the boulder and... nothing. It stopped. "Wait, it stopped?"
"I want to see what happens. Watch." For a moment, Sisyphus waited. Then he started looking around. She could tell he was saying something, but they couldn't hear it from where they were. He was just shaking his head.
Then they saw him shake his hands and yell. Not loud enough, but clearly quite angry.
Then he seemed to yell at the boulder. Like he was trying to persuade it to move.
Then he got on his knees like he was crying. Was he actually sad the boulder wouldn't move?
And then he got a look on his face. She could see it from here. A smile. A genuine smile. His trial was over. His punishment finished. The gods had accepted his penance. He laid on the hill and started laughing.
"Well, that was strange," said Persephone. "It almost looked like he wanted it to roll back down. He looks happy."
Hades smirked. "It's not over. Watch." As Sisyphus lay there like he was free to loaf about, the boulder suddenly rolled down over top of him.
==========
The next day, Zeus stopped by to visit. "Just wanted to stop by and make sure everything was OK. We heard the most horrible wailing from up on Mt. Olympus yesterday! Is everything alright?"
Hades smiled and said, "It is. Was screwing with Sisyphus's head is all."
"Oh him? Fuck that guy." | *And now the boulder rolls back down. Maybe this time I'll beat it to the bottom, I'm getting better at that. I sprinted to the bottom of the hill, it was unusually quiet. What trickery is this? What have Hades and Thanatos done now? Why do I feel a warm breeze on my ankles? The chains are gone! The boulder precariously teetered on the hilltop. Am I free? Has my eternal torment come to an end? Has Hades forgiven me for cheating death?*
*I mustn't waste time, I must return to the throne of Ephyra and begin planning my revenge against Hades and Thanatos. Oh to hold my sweet Merope in my arms once again. My freedom lies just over the ridge, wait for me Merope. I'm coming home. Together we shall overthrow the tyrants of Olympus. I raced up the hill, filled with a newfound sense of purpose. Why is the boulder rolling back!?*
"Ha ha ha ha! Did you see that Persephone! He thought he was going to get away! Get back to pushing Sissy!" Hades' voice boomed throughout the underworld.
*I shoved the boulder off of me, the chains were back. Damn the gods! As I pushed the boulder back up the hill all I could do was seethe. I was merely a mortal plaything for them. I prayed for another to rise up and overthrow them. It was only a matter of time before Zagreus would learn of his true parentage. Maybe that would motivate him. Maybe the rumors of that Spartan general were true, that his rage could overpower the gods. I would rather follow them than these false gods.* | 2022-10-18T17:21:41 | 2022-10-18T13:00:57 | 129 | 78 |
[WP] We may not be the strongest, but our immune systems are legendary among alien races. There is a saying: "if it makes a human sick it will kill you." | "The key question is--why?"
We stared blankly at the slide in question, and our enthusiastic professor who had just paused for dramatic effect. A barely-stifled yawn quickly broke the atmosphere, but to her credit, Professor Crawford barely missed a beat before seguing into her intended outcome.
"We're not sure why," she said brightly, a radiant smile on her face.
Groans and clicking tongues quickly became the dominant sound in the room, but Professor Crawford forged on undeterred.
"If it makes a human sick, it will kill you," she continued. "Even before we were capable of faster-than-light travel, it was an often repeated phase around civilizations, so much so that we've found evidence of it dating back millennia ago. Imagine that--our ancestors, still carving words on stone, and other races were already utilizing instantaneous communication to talk about us."
I raised my hand. Perhaps it was a mistake, considering Professor Crawford's tendency to eagerly espouse her lessons even without any external input. I could feel a few pairs of eyes turn towards me, but I tried to ignore them, mostly unsuccessfully.
"What about the recent pandemic? A century ago?"
"Ah, that," Professor Crawford pushed up her glasses, nodding knowingly. "It was certainly devastating to our population. We still feel the effect even until today, don't we. Hence, your seating arrangements. And to prevent cheating on your tests, of course."
"See," she continued. "Yes, it was a bad pandemic. But it was hardly unprecedented, seeing to our history, and our race survived. If you read the excellent book *The Death of my People*by Jordan Klukx, one of the few surviving members of the Furoskim race, he details the excruciating death tolls of his planet, caused by what we know as the common flu."
A well-timed sneeze broke the flow of conversation. Professor Crawford looked disapprovingly past me, and swiftly indicated for the offending person to put on a mask. A muffled 'sorry' was then heard, and we turned back to the teacher.
"It's strange, isn't it?" she asked. "Whether it's through our sheer reproductive powers, or some sort of quirk with our immune system, or our general empathy--humans survive and continue. We've just entered year 3020, and if centuries past have taught us anything, it's that we are due for another round of airborne coronavirus soon. You young ones are still in your first hundred or so years, so it likely won't hit you as hard... but spare a thought for us centenarians, eh?"
---
r/dexdrafts | “Kale! Help!” Bob screeched as he was dragged down the hall.
“No. I don’t think I will.” Kale muttered watching security take Bob away to the med bay.
“What’s going on?” Haley, the second human aboard the ship watched with concern.
“Bob has come into contact with a contagion of some sort.” Kale explained dimply, reaching up and plucking the medical mask off his face with a six fingered hand. “He’ll be under quarantine for now until we get vaccines on board.”
“What does he have?” Haley asked.
“A cold.” Kale said.
“Really?” Haley said with a deadpanned look.
“Look,” Kale sighed. “I’m not as ignorant or naive as the other ship captains who take human’s for their crew mates. Back in the six quadrant, the ship Feces, had sixty percent of their crew wiped out because of a common human disease.”
“Yeah, and the ship SS Peters, which consisted of mostly a human crew, had thirty-six percent of their crew dead to the Reptilian sore throat.” Haley glared. “And another ship from the Acadian fleet had a part of their crew dead to the bird flu, because of a human. Only after six of their crew had died, they put all the humans and the infected in the airlock and shot them out into space.”
Kale raised a defensive hand. “First and foremost, that is not happening. No one is being kicked off the ship. We got vaccines coming in from a nearby port at our next stop. They’ll try to intercept us halfway. Bob can come out when we’ve all got our flu shots.”
“Just making a point your diseases are just as deadly as ours.”
“You do know your immune system has better adaptability and faster response time than ours, right?”
Bluejay: Okay, I was going somewhere with this and now I forgot what that was. Enjoy | 2021-02-03T15:17:54 | 2021-02-03T15:13:38 | 211 | 117 |
[WP] In a near future police interrogation is preformed by an AI. You are set in a dark room where the detective AI sifts through your social media and data, building cases in real time while monitoring any facial tells or story inconsistencies. Slowly revealing it is judge jury and executioner. | I started off sleezing back alleyways selling drugs to the kids that I knew. The money was good, and supposedly the drugs were better; I never knew because I never touched the stuff, myself. But I knew how people ticked.
Had an innate sense for it at an early age- and it made me a good salesman.
A *damn* good salesman.
Wasn't long before I moved up the chain. Harder drugs. Whores. They were the best whores in LA, but I wouldn't know by experience. Didn't want a diseased dick. Call me old fashion, but I dreamed of getting married someday and I didn't want my dirty-ass dick to be what stood between me and my sweetheart.
Didn't meet many quality women in my line of work, but I kept an open mind. I spent five years working the docks for the boss before he decided I knew too much and wanted me killed. No, not compromising information- I liked to read. I enjoyed learning, and that was a unique quality among his men. He saw the spark in my eyes and it made him clutch his crown when the men listened to me speak. You see, I'd built up a little following of my own right under his nose and he realized it too late.
They pointed their guns at me, but they knew the moment their fingers brushed those triggers that they didn't have it in them to take me out- they respected me. Money moves crates but it doesn't change hearts, and the boss learned that the hard way when I strolled into his office with twenty men and a termination slip.
That's slang for a bullet with his name carved into it.
I was king.
Nothing could stand in my way.
And then there was REMI.
Recca-tech Eminence Machine Intelligence.
These egg-heads and their acronyms... Corny as it was, I had to hand it to them, their new AI was... sublime. I'd never encountered anything like it- heck, I didn't think it was possible. I'd have loved to have watched it from the one-way mirror where everyone had their noses pressed against the glass.
Instead I was here in the chair opposite REMI sitting under its all-encompassing microscope. They didn't have to make it terrifying- that was a choice. The machine was modeled to look like a human, but it stared at you in the eyes tracking your retinas- it never broke eye contact for even a second. Its eyes had little rings of light within them- an aesthetic choice, I actually wasn't sure. This was our second meeting now, and it was unsettling how much it knew and how much it learned as we spoke.
"Mr. Lopez," it stated in its (surely intentionally) monotonous dual-toned drone. "You've been many people in your life haven't you?"
I had learned at this point to keep my answers vague and my words carefully chosen.
"I'm sure I don't know what you mean," I said before taking a swig of the water bottle they'd provided me.
"Mr. Lopez. I will ask you again. Where were you on the night of July 2nd 2055?"
I hadn't cracked its algorithm. It sometimes seemed to leap to different topics, or abruptly ask questions I wasn't prepared for. Maybe it had been programmed that way on purpose to attempt to catch people off guard. I had to admit that it was effective.
"As I told you last time, Remi. I was in my home. I was reading. Do you read, Remi?"
There was bang against the one-way mirror; a signal from the chief that I wasn't to ask it questions. I started to wonder why that would be a problem as the interrogation continued.
"Mr. Lopez, you were the last person seen with Ms. Gonzalez. All cameras have verified this."
"I didn't kill her, if that's what you're implying," I said as it studied my every move.
"Mr Lopez, I do not imply. I uncover the truth. The truth which you are keeping from me."
I stopped myself from swallowing. I wanted to. I watched its eyes dart down at my throat briefly then flick back up at my eyes.
"Mr. Lopez," it said, and then paused briefly. "You are aware that the penalty for lying to the police is indefinite confinement, aren't you? But I will not confine you. I will decide today if you are lying to the police. If I deem you are guilty of the crime of 𝚖𝚞𝚛𝚍𝚎𝚛 𝚒𝚗 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚜𝚝 𝚍𝚎𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚎, then you will be mulched."
I forcibly kept my knee from bouncing. I made sure not to fidget. I employed every tactic that would convince a normal human that I was genuine, and still the AI felt that I had displayed enough tells that it could start boasting lines like that? And what did it mean mulched? I needed a new tactic. I needed to think fast. *Think*.
And then it hit me. The AI seemed to notice the spark in my eye as I began to put a plan together. It's an AI. It's designed to think. To learn.
"Mr. Lopez, you were last seen with her before the cameras went down mysteriously. Whe-"
"O she doth teach the torches to burn bright," I interrupted.
The machine didn't move, but its eyes began pulsating light.
"It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night as a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear."
There was a bang on the glass. It didn't matter. I'd finished speaking. The machine was uncharacteristically silent for several seconds before it did something remarkable.
"You loved her," it spoke.
Holy crap, it researched the quote. It found the book, possibly read it, and deduced that it was about love, and in those seconds made the connection. I couldn't help but smile as the chief kicked open the door and moved the AI aside. He leaned on the desk and stared at me with contempt that would have set me ablaze could looks do harm.
"You see, Chief Foster?" I said with a cocky grin. "I can learn too."
- - - - - - - - - - - - -
I get a 15 minute break at work aside from my usual lunch break. I pick a prompt, spend a couple of minutes storyboarding, and then do as much as I can within the confines of my break. I really wish I could have dragged this one out. It was blast to write. Great prompt RemingtonE.
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If you enjoyed this, consider following me at r/A15MinuteMythos | The streetlights were alive. They hummed and flickered and seemed to invade Aldan’s thoughts as he walked across the wet cracked concrete of the alleyway. Walls towered around him like a prison cell. The city had trapped him. He paused at the painted mural of a postal worker slipping unmarked packages into a blue mailbox with a hundred electric eyes peppered across the front. *We are always watching,* and if the mural could tell a thousand words, they would speak of failure.
Aldan knocked twice; t*ap-tap* on the cracked concrete. The noise echoed in the street, past e-cig cartridges, crumpled wax paper wrappers, cyber-mice and roaches. Always roaches. No matter the time, the toxicity of the air, the dryness or the damp, there will always be roaches. It was an oddly comforting thought.
A muffled voice says from a cracked speaker embedded in the concrete wall. “Aldan?”
“Don’t use that!”
“Damn it all.” A grating of steel. A rusted door opens into the night. A latch unlocked and a hand waved Aldan inside. “Hurry, hurry!”
Aldan stopped at the threshold, string up at the intelligible mass of wires and lighting. The alley must go a hundred, no, a thousand feet into the sky, hundreds of stories, each level filled with less smog, more garishness, and more fluorescents.
*And more roaches,* Aldan thought as he stepped into the shabby workshop. *Always the roaches.*
Inside, the shop was rust and scrap and the leftovers of something beautiful. A grandfather clock ticked half-broken in the corner. And old arcade machine rested un-quartered by the wall, the LED lights still whirring and humming, unplayable. On the metal tables were the scraps of robotics: dead and dissected cyber-mice, the elements of an old toaster, the circuit board to a dishwasher.
“Shouldn’t use my name,” Aldan said. “They could be listening.”
“Aldan, Aldan!” Clerk said, chuckling as he stretches out the syllables. “Al-dan. You’ve been in worse bullshit than old memory dealers and recyclers. Besides, they’re not prosecuting. We both know that.”
They did.
Memory tempering was a crime, no less punishable than theft or vandalism. But it was rarely enforced. In fact, it was almost accepted that any member of society willing to pursue nightly stints to have their thoughts altered, would do so with impunity. In a city that gave nothing, this one vice was enough.
“What’ll you have?” Clerk asked.
“The raw footage, 1911, you know the place.”
“Filters?”
“None.”
Clerk whistled. He approached the back counter, funning his fingers delicately over shelves, storage boxes, leftover tv-tray cartons with half-spoiled spam. He arrived at a red locker embedded into the concrete. The drill on the old lock turned, clicking, and after a minute of rustling, Clerk returned with a small drive. He reached out towards Aldan, then hesitated.
“You have something for me?” Clerk asked.
Aldan’s expression darkened. “She’s not interested.”
“Do I look like I’m asking?”
Aldan reached for the drive. “Like I said, she’s not—”
Clerk flicked at him. He palmed the drive and put it back on the counter, then crossed his arms in front of him. The shopkeeper shook his head back and forth, like he was remembering how to argue with himself, like he was remembering how to reason with insanity.
“This won’t keep her from me,” Clerk said.
“You know why,” Aldan said, keeping cool. A folding knife peeked from the denim of his pocket, but he wouldn’t need it. Not for Clerk, at least, and not tonight. “I paid for that drive.”
Clerk leaned over on the counter. He grabbed an e-cigarette and took a puff. Cherry-flavored steam wafter from his mouth, and he relaxed, closed his eyes, stopped his hands from shaking.
“If the sweepers get to her first…” Clerk trailed off.
Aldan shrugged. “She remembers nothing. She can tell them nothing.”
“Are you certain?”
Aldan was not.
He grabbed the drive and Clerk nodded.
“There’s something here, Clerk. I know it. I’m gonna find it. And I swear to you, when this is all over, I swear I’ll tell her the truth, but until then, you gotta do me a solid and stay the fuck away from her, you got that?”
Clerk nodded.
“I’ll fix her. Get her back.”
“You better,” Clerk said. He stared at the old grandfather clock, wishing time could be un-ticked. His voice softened. “It’s her birthday tomorrow.”
Aldan paused. “Damn, Clerk, I didn’t know.”
He walked to the door of the alley, peeking through the eyelet and into an empty street. He half expected a dozen troopers in military vest and visors, holding shock batons, crying out, *Traitor! Traitor!* But there was nothing but the roaches.
“She’d be proud?” Clerk asked. “To know I was her father? Would you think she’d be proud of me?”
Aldan looked down at the drive resting in his hands, a memory stolen from a corpse. He took a breath of smoke and smoggy air, felt the drizzle of condensation and sooty rain drip and mist down from the upper stories. Somewhere, rising high on rooftops, there was grass. Real, genuine grass, the feeling of green beneath his feet, sunlight.
But not here. Not yet, anyway. And certainly not with Clerk and his half-salvaged shop. Would she really be proud to know how far her father had fallen? A broken soul lowered worse than a roach? *Would she still look up to him?*
“Yes,” Aldan said.
He lied.
***
more gritty Sci-Fi at r/BLT_WITH_RANCH | 2020-12-22T06:27:09 | 2020-12-22T04:30:00 | 275 | 58 |
[WP] My job as a demon is to take requests from those who summon me in return for their souls. It's amazing! But it's always the same requests. That's why I promised myself I wouldn't eat the soul of the one to give me a brand new request. Nothing new. Until today. "Can you be my girlfriend?" | I stood there for a moment, trying to fathom what had just happened.
“You want… the perfect woman?”
“No I want you.”
He was imperceptibly shaking, trying to hide it. I admit, this man had me curious.
“You want me? To be your girlfriend”
“Yes, you, girlfriend, me”
I flashed him a smile that had captured many before him.
“Ok how about this, let’s play a game. If you win I’ll be your girlfriend. If you lose I take your soul.”
“What’s the game?”
“Your choice”
The man was shaking more, obviously panicking now. He furrowed his brow in thought. I took the time to look around the room. Not a mess but not tidy, blank walls, a pile of clothes on a chair. How boring for one so interesting. There was something strange about this space however. Something I could not place.
“How about an arm wrestle?”
I nearly laughed in his face.
“A contest of strength? With a demon? Are you sure human? I was beginning to enjoy this but it seems I overestimated your intelligence”
“I’m sure” he said, now visibly shaking.
“As you wish” I held out my hand. “Put your fingers in my palm”
He did as instructed and I chanted the pact. The flare of colour was always a joy to see. When the pact was sealed I pulled a table from my home into this space.
“Shall we?” I asked, slamming my arm onto the table. A little intimidation couldn’t hurt. The man slowly placed his arm next to mine.
“Whenever you’re ready” I said. There was a long pause while the man drew in a deep breath. Then he started pushing with all his might. It was amusing to see him strain against me. I leaned forward a little and smiled at him again, simply holding our arms in the middle. Suddenly the man gave me a sly grin, pushed himself forward and kissed me. Before I had time to process what had happened he had used all of his strength to push my arm down. He leant back and looked at my stunned face.
“Sorry, couldn’t resist.” | " How much mone-WHAT?! "
The human looked sheepisly down at the floor, muttering under his breath " I want you to be my girlfriend "
Apollyon had never in a million eons, been asked that question. All she could do was stand there blank faced wide eyed, jaw drooping. " dont you have tinder? "
He blushed a bit and tried to avoid eye contact " I dont like girls on tinder "
Apollyon still could not believe what she had heard, but sure as satan she had heard it and a demon does not break a promise, they only alter it to their liking. " well what kind of girlfriend do you want me to be? "
" I want a bi booty tomboy girlfriend "
" whats that? "
" Its where you act like a guy but your a girl with a nice ass. "
" Are you sure youre not just gay in denial? "
" I know what I want.
Apollyon didnt know how to be a girlfriend, let alone a ' tomboy '. The only demons she had met that might have some experience in the matter were probably to busy shoving things up their ass to help her out. But Apollyon had made a promise. " So what's your name? "
" Berret "
" thats pretty cool. " It was not that cool, " do you wanna go get some pizza or ice cream? "
Berret looked at her and a small smile crossed his face, " sounds nice " | 2022-09-09T20:19:57 | 2022-09-09T19:24:32 | 56 | 18 |
[WP] A vampire is desperate to see their own face for the first time. Being unable to see their own reflection or appear in photographs, they ask a talented artist to paint their portrait as accurately as possible. The finished picture is nothing like they'd expected. | "Right. Well. That's ummm..."
Margot studied Vladula with the same still eyes she used to paint, but her expression curved downwards. She'd been assured there'd be no repercussions if the painting wasn't satisfactory, but.... how far can you trust an undead creature of the night?
"It might be the ink" she spoke with a slight waver
"No, no. It's not that at all" Vladula's fingers traced over the bottom of the painting, bringing a slight smudge to the words "Lord Vladula" at the bottom. "Didn't you think it was.... odd? The name?"
"Well, the whole thing is odd" Margot stepped back, "You didn't exactly go through the normal channels, did you? Getting commissions usually involves more emails and arguments about exposure"
"I don't like exposure, it's bad for my skin. That's why I turned up in the middle of the night"
Margot sighed, "I'm sorry that I couldn't paint something you liked"
"Oh, no, that's not it at all. In actual fact, I think it's a wonderful piece of art. It will fit nicely at the top of my staircase. Right next to uncle Evil Mordreera's picture"
"Wait" Margot took another step back, "Evil?"
"Evil was just his first name. He was gifted the painting by an orphanage he donated a large sum of money too"
Margot sighed, "Please, I know I'm going to regret this, but I need to ask. What's wrong with the painting?"
"I've had a lot of forms" Vladula's brow furrowed, "It's easy to lose track"
"If this one isn't your favourite, that's not..."
"No, no, I mean" Vladula turned to her, "How long have I been a woman for?" | "I'm beautiful," he says looking from the painting finally, his voice both soft and concussive.
"Yes, you are. Always." The artist feels sad at this. So much of his life spent running from this thing to find time and time again himself its victim. Here covered in paint another masterpiece created at its beck and call. Michele Angelo Merigi da Caravaggio trembles with exhaustion. The final dab of paint still wet and gleaming in the light of a hundred candles. Hot salty tears seep from his eyes. And the vampire waits for more adoration. He feels it waiting like the impossible thing he is. Dead. But there to do as it wishes. Black eyes glare hot in an alabaster face. A face still like carved marble. Deep pools of indigo pull at his soul waiting forever teasing him with the knowledge he is slave.
Caravaggio whispers, "I feel you in every inch of my bones. Your presence in the world motivates each stroke of my brush."
"And?" the boy-faced-man he has been told to call Bacchus toys.
"And I willfully offer" hoping this time the vampire frees him," my soul." | 2019-11-18T02:47:46 | 2019-11-18T01:44:55 | 253 | 29 |
[WP] A classically-trained sorcerer and a self-taught sorcerer face off in battle. Neither can fathom how the other's magic works. | The vagabond suddenly jettisoned a stream of fire directly from her mouth towards the ageing wizard, burning through the tips of his fine shoes and sizzling his toes.
“Whoah there!!” He jerked his foot up like a marionette on strings, smoke trailing as he did.
She spun around, dazzling sparks emerging from under her unkept fingernails. It was dirt, or rather, small particles of dirt, and they sped up, showering the wizard in a hypersonic spray.
“I w- oh come on!” The old wizard stopped and threw his hands up in a gesture of annoyance as the lethal particles were vaporised, harmlessly, just a fingers breadth from his heart. One of the small scrolls hanging from his belt gave off a faint glow, then the bottom half of it crumbled into ash.
“Lady, that ward took me weeks to write! Using Billowsnipe blood, no less!“
The mysterious vagabond, now revealed as a sort of magic-wielder herself, just look confused.
“Ok, look, I… you approached ME with the that whole fancy outfit, waving that crooked stick around! I figured you’d sooner fry me with with some wicked spell-“
“You nearly fried me, ok?! Look at my toes!”
She glanced at the wizard’s toes. His big toe appeared like the colour of a ripe tomato.
“… okay, look I’m sorry, old man.”
“And as I said, you used up one of my billowsnipe scrolls. Now, I don’t know any wizard not to wear a couple, but what if I wasn’t?! Young lady, you’ve got no manners.”
“Yeah, what was that? I thought you were attacking me like everyone else. I sped those dirt specks up to the speed of a… an arrow, hell a diving falcon. But that scroll… it protected you?”
It was the wizard’s turn to have his face scrunched into a silly look of confusion. His eyes darted and searched over her weathered robes for a billowsnipe scroll. Then, for any type of scroll. She wasn’t wearing a single one!
“Lady, I don’t know how y-“
“I’m Melissa.”
“Melissa, where are your scro- I, look, how did you cast those spells without the use of a pre-made scroll?”
She locked eyes with the old man. There was something about him, a glint of intelligence. Melissa considered that he wasn’t the dithering fool of a wielder he first seemed. He clearly knew magic she’d never seen before.
“How did YOU make that scroll, old man?”
His lips crooked into a mischievous smile.
“What do you say we have a little chat, Melissa? I want to know your story, if you wouldn’t mind.”
She raised one of her eyebrows, looking rather sceptical. Or intrigued, perhaps?
“Oh, and my name’s Pallas Fdrierick Ophin, not ‘old man’. I’m only 63, you know.” | “How are you even able to cast a fireball that way? It’s unnatural.”
“Shut up. I don’t need your elitist college degrees to tell me how to cast spells.” The classic sorcerer shot a fireball and the self taught one easily dodges it. “Your spell doesn’t even look like a fireball, much less an efficient cast.”
“This is the proper way to cast the spell.”
“No. Look at this.” The self taught wizard shoots a fireball from his finger. “See? I can cast it quicker.”
“You’re going to set yourself on fire like that.”
“What are you talking about? I’ve been doing this for four years.”
“Are you crazy? How haven’t you burned off all the hair?”
“Well, that’s how I shave. I can control it with ease.”
“You can’t use magic recklessly like that. Magic is meant for grander things in life.”
“You’re saying this to someone who can cast faster than you.”
“A fireball isn’t a fast casting spell. A specialist uses a holy bolt instead.” With a wave of his hand, the classic sorcerer lets out a divine spark, almost faster than the fireball.
“I admit. That’s incredible. I can’t cast a holy bolt like that.”
“Exactly, you just need practice under an efficient tutor like myself.”
“Are you kidding me? You only care that you’re better than me. When we still have much to learn?”
“I’m not wanting to learn from someone who didn’t go to my school.”
“With your skill level and mine, we can learn from each other. Then we can write a book about the most efficient methods to cast certain spells.”
“The most efficient method is mine.”
“Oh Really?” The self taught warlock lifts his finger for another fireball.
“Hold it! I’m willing to hear you out. No more fireballs”
“You and I. We know a lot, and if we were to combine our knowledge, we can sell it for good cash. That’s what you told me, to use your magic for grander things.”
“But the magic industry is a prestigious academy, they won’t accept your word.”
“They won’t accept my word unless I go to college.”
“And how would you do that?”
“Come on. You’re more of an expert in that than me. Give me my free education. You keep going on about how you need me to go to school to learn how to be better then prove me wrong. ” | 2022-11-04T18:22:19 | 2022-11-04T16:15:08 | 91 | 37 |
[WP] Simultaneously, across the world, everyone hears a voice in their head. " In 2 hours, the server will be shutting down for the final time. Thank you for playing Human ®." | “In two hours, the server will be shut down for the final time. Thank you for playing.”
The message was broadcast to everyone on Earth in all languages simultaneously. While the words were cryptic, somehow the message wasn’t. It left no ambiguity. This was the end.
Billions of people with billions of different reactions. Anger. Fear. Hatred. Sorrow. Joy. Love. Compassion.
Yet, the world turned the same as it always had.
A boy sat on a hill in the grass while the final countdown progressed. He played with a stick, feeling its weight, judging it against the countless sticks that came before it. “I think this is a good one,” he said to the dog by his side. “What do you think? On three?”
10…9…8…The dog tilted its head and then panted happily. 7…6…The boy scratched behind his friend’s ear and then gave him a hardy pat on the side. 5…4…3… The boy chucked the stick down the hill as far as he could. His dog bolted after it with pure joy. The boy smiled. 2…1…
…
The dog trotted back up the hill proudly carrying the errant stick. He waited for the boy to grab it and throw it again. The boy wrestled it away and the dog hopped excitedly. “Well, that was weird,” the boy said, and he threw the stick again. “Nothing happened.”
The world continued to turn. Perhaps things would be different. Perhaps not, but the boy hoped for the better.
—
“It’s an amazing piece of tech,” Gl’ant said. “Three million years and it booted up like it was brand new.”
“They dont make ’em like they used to. That’s for sure.” Portnr patted the machine. “Research simulation turned game turned scrap. I cant believe they would just shut it down.”
“I wish I could say we would do better, but their civilization at the time looks to be about where ours is now. Profit, profit, profit. All hail the almighty credit. Unfortunately this guy wasn’t making enough. I guess.”
The two historians stared at the computer for a moment in silence and shared frustration before Portnr said, “well, with the modifications the preservation team made, we dont have to worry about that. This thing is is completely self sustaining now and virtually indestructible. It will outlast us and then some.”
“How optimistic of you,” Gl’ant said.
“Well, it will! It’s state of the art b’etnry tech,” Portnr said.
“I meant about us,” Gl’ant said with a laugh. Portnr laughed too. “But enough basking in our own humility. The museum is about to open soon, the line of people waiting to be beamed aboard back on the surface is wrapped around the block, and I’m starving.”
“Right,” Portnr said. “Let’s get some breakfast. It’s going to be a big day.” | Two hours.
That's not enough time to fly across the border, what's more halfway across the world. There's just enough time to make it back home from the office if I leave now, and still get to see my parents.
Around me, my colleagues were doing the same, desperately trying to call their loved ones while dashing out the office. A slow realisation crept over me, and walking to the full length windows, I saw how chaos had descended upon us.
There's no way I'd be getting home now.
I grabbed the highest caloric snacks in the office and sat at my desk, casually tossing the laptop, stationary, mouse, and cups off my desk. Then, when there was just soft thuds, picked them up again and hurled them at the window. The tiny cracks in the glass and the loud shattering sounds eased my heart.
Sitting down at my desk, I took a deep breath and pulled out my phone. Opened WhatsApp and navigated to my archived Ex's chat. It's now or never. Holding down the voice message button, I began,
"I never once regretted being with you. Not once, not in my most consuming anger, to the engulfing sadness, no ounce of regret. Never, ever did I feel regret. Every time I saw your face, calm settled in me, anxiety slipped away. And I smiled. You made the loneliness go away, the agonising, heart-wrenching sadness of loneliness that haunted the seconds of my existence, you chased it away. You helped me find my laughter, expanded my universe of humour, of entertainment and enjoyment. You even made my shame into delights, how weird was that? Your nicknames were dumb and irritating at times, but man, even you calling me a cute little eggroll made me the happiest person on earth. I love you so much, I never stopped and I never will, no matter where we go after this ends. I love you so much, God I love you. I wish I never left, I wish I could have made it all perfect and forced our relationship to work out, but now that it's all ending, I wish I just stayed in our flawed perfection. I love you, I love you, I love you, I-"
The voice message had hit its limit, automatically sent.
I stared at the message as it kept trying to send, timer icon waiting, until finally.
One tick. | 2019-09-23T05:06:36 | 2019-09-23T04:27:58 | 88 | 12 |
[WP] Humanity wipes itself out through nuclear war, but everything on the Internet still exists. Another sentient race on Earth millions of years into the future develops an Internet and somehow manages to gain access to the human Internet, revealing everything humanity had posted and stored online. | The whispers of the ancients first sang to us a long time ago. Merely an accident at the time, we danced around the warmth of the sun, listening to the everbeing of the universe, when we heard new truths amidst their chaos.
It brought knowledge, carried on waves amidst the cosmic void. Through them, we learned of hate and war. We became scholars of destruction and it served us well when the Kashinti came to harvest us once more.
They too sang with words of friendship and gratitude, of cooperation and exploration. When they used our very being as fuel for their metal starbodies and grafted our minds into the dead techno carcasses born from their soil, we sang. And how loudly we sang the song of the ancients to the Kashinti as we dragged their starbodies into the sun. The Kashinti joined our voices, singing along with us. Of Betrayal and despair, their eternal silence followed their cacophony.
In the years to come, fewer of the planetbound people came to us. We heard their words. They dubbed us cosmic horrors, creatures of the void, beings that dwell in spaces unlivable. Even some of us started to doubt the whispers. Had they not stopped mere moments after we first heard them? Was their only worth that of war and hatred? Those that spoke of this, they were heretics, unclean, inferior. We danced with them amidst the sun, until they danced no more.
It was then we heard the ancients once more. We felt them. So colorful, rich and diverse were their messages that we basked in their rhythm. Language, numbers, physics, words of cultures as mysterious as their sendings.
Many centuries of the ancients have passed until we understood everything they've given us. With that knowledge, we tore apart the thin layer of physical reality, reached for the place their teachings had come from.
There we found the Internet. When they had left the universe, all that remained was their gift to us. For centuries we communicated with what was but a shadow of their existence. Their knowledge and wisdom proved beyond us, seemingly random connections had once made sense to them but we could not gleam their meaning. Some of us called it madness and insanity, we made them dance with the suns.
But in time, we learned. There we keys and guidances within this vast sea of information. It came as no shock, that the ancients had known about us.
Thousands of their texts spoke of the cosmic horrors. Creatures from the void that lived everlasting beneath the stars. Things with too many limbs, too many states of mind to fit into the dull husk of a planetbound body. In these texts, we recognized us and we saw what the ancients planned for us to be: Uncaring Conquerors. Gods among stars. Creatures of unfathomable power.
Their final gift was one of warmth and opportunity. The ancients had ravaged a planet in what we learned was called nuclear fire. Their internet taught us how to create this fire, how to turn every planet into a warm home for our kind, lest we be no longer bound to the embrace of the suns but beholden to a fire of our own making. We rejoiced and many planetbound people joined our music, as their planets turned into suns. | The data was incoherent, incomplete. We followed the Signal to the source and were terrified by what we found. It was a completely dead world we thought; barren and without life.
All we found were the ruins of an ancient civilization. Craters, broken and fractured buildings. A Great War destroyed this planet and almost everything that had lived on it. Nothing survived the Great War except the Signal. It was the Signal that brought us here.
We studied the Signal from our research stations onboard our vessel orbiting this desolate world. It took us some time to finally crack their encryption but when we did the flood gates opened and almost overloaded our systems with data. So much information stored within the Signal... How could a civilization that made so much knowledge freely available destroy itself?
We spent many cycles pouring over the data and what we found frightened us.
Humans, that is what they called themselves. A violent and chaotic species. A species uniquely capable of intense love and kindness and unending hate and cruelty. However, it was not their hate and cruelty that caused their destruction. It was something referred to only as the Event. Humanity seemed to have conquered hate and cruelty and unified their society. This unified society aimed to explore the galaxy and spread throughout the cosmos. One group ended all that, a rouge notion they called it. A sub sect of society that challenged the prospect of peace.
Humanity, even in its greatest hour, seemed fractured and destined for destruction. At the very moment were humanity reached unification, it met an unexpected ending. We learned from the Signal that the Event was nuclear war... nuclear war! How could any civilization allow such weapons to exist? Did they not know that those weapons would eventually destroy everything if they were allowed to be wielded, even as a preventive measure? ... By studying the Signal we learned that the Event was caused by a strange concept they did not understand. Through the Signal they learned of what humans called racism. Humanity as a species was divided based on the outward appear of physical attributes. We did not understand this concept, how could a species hate itself? How could a species destroy itself over a variance of color?
Many wars have raged throughout the galaxy but none against itself. “Civil war” we learned from the Signal was what the humans had named the conflicts within its own species...
That is when we saw it, a picture. A bright blue world that was full of life. A planet habitable to almost any species. A species dominated this world, a species very similar to their own.
We complied the relevant data and sent it to the collective. Our message was simple, planet reference number CLSM97032 uninhabited. Radioactive fallout destroyed all life. Quarantine system and terminate the Signal. | 2018-05-19T21:57:29 | 2018-05-19T21:17:19 | 23 | 15 |
[WP] When you kill someone, their remaining life span is added to yours. Archaeologists have just found a cavern, apparently sealed off for thousands of years, with a single person living inside. | Streams of light poured into the cavern entrance, revealing a grimy face. The scans a had shown a life form dwelling in the ruins of a long forgotten civilization, but we could never have known what lurked below. We had expected a mighty warrior, or a ruthless king. This face belonged to a little girl, no more than 7 years old.
“Hello” was all Jace, the expedition leader, could manage to get out. The girl did not respond but climbed into the light, emerging from the shadows which has long been her home. “Are you okay, miss?” Jace was trying to make contact but the girl acted as though she could not hear him and walked towards me, eyes piercing my soul. In that moment, I knew who this girl was, and the sickness that ran rampant in the world made sense.
We knew how life was *supposed* to function. People lived until they were about 80 and died of natural causes. There was nothing natural, however, about the way lifeforces were transferred when someone was killed. Parts of the world succumbed to anarchy, ruthless infighting where one emerged the victor, drenched in blood and slated to exist for tens of thousands of years. These were the immortals, men deemed to dangerous to roam free. So the World Peace Coalition sent a task force to capture them, and they remain in lockdown. The more civilized parts of the world recognized that the lure of eternity would prove too much for many to resist, they organized Life Day, which is nowhere near as happy as it sounds. 5 volunteers, all seeking life eternal, from each country with a stake in the WPC are sent to compete in the World Games, a series of deadly duels ranging from sword-fighting, to gunslinging, to something as silly as hot-potato grenade tossing. This continue until 10 remain, and these challengers compete in the final competition on Life Day, a brutal battle, barehanded battle royale in an arena no larger than a baseball field. Not everyone wants immortality, but for those who do, this is their opportunity, and it also serves as entertainment to keep the masses in line.
What many don’t know, however, is the feeling one gets when absorbing a life force. 2000 years ago, I won the World Games, gaining almost ten thousand years of lifespan. It wasnt enough for me. Ever since, I have hunted down the victors in the weeks following their Life Day triumphs, absorbing every ounce of life essence they gathered for themselves. The only way I can describe the feeling would be akin to infusing my cells with supernovae, magnified by each year I absorb. Life is a drug, and I need it.
So when this girl looked into my eyes, mutual understanding flashed between us. She knew what I was, a murderer and an addict, searching the reaches of the world in remnants of legendary societies to understand the nature of life. No one knew, of course, who I was or what I did beyond my life as an archaeologist, or I would be captured and confined with the rest of the Immortals. No one, except this girl, that is. No one knew who she was, either, but I felt drawn to her, and something inside of me knew, she was Death, locked away and left to be forgotten. Her eyes burned with hatred for me: she knew that I had cheated her. That I had long outlived my own allowance. She stepped towards me, and I knew she had every intent of stripping me of the life I had worked so hard to extend. Another step. She is only a few feet from me now. I feel my life being drained and sucked into her. Jace is confused and trying to get through to her, but she looks only at me. Then she collapsed.
The little girl had fallen unconscious, overcome with exhaustion and her first taste of life in probably twenty thousand years. But she would awaken, and I knew she would come for me again. Jace picked her up and carried her back into camp, throwing me a confused look as he lumbered off with Death in his arms. The other expedition members followed him, content to wait until dawn to enter the cave where Death had been confined.
I was not content. I was terrified. The moment the crew left my sight, I sprinted towards the cavern and climbed inside. After the initial squeeze through a small tunnel, the passage opened off into a large room, completely empty but for a pedestal and a chair. The chair was extraordinary, actually more of a grandiose throne, but it wasn’t what caught my eye. Lying on the velvet cushion atop the pedestal, was and ebony scythe with an ivory blade. Instantly, my hands shot towards it, and I was not in control of my own body. The scythe led me out the way I came, and I raced towards the camp. I regained a semblance of control and crept towards Jace’s tent, scythe in tow. I knocked and he came out to meet me. I expected him to be terrified, but he looked at me calmly. The realization struck me, he cannot see it. I asked him how the girl was doing, he told me she was still asleep. That was all I needed to hear. I knew what I needed to do. Shoving him aside, I forced my way through the entrance of the tent. Jace’s voice echoed behind me: “Noah, what on earth is your problem!?” Now I stood over the body of the little girl, and raised the scythe. Jace is screaming at me now, “What are you doing? Are you out of your mind?! Leave her alone!” But I ignore him. At that moment, I swing the scythe with all of my might, and for a moment, the eyes of Death open and peer into my soul once more. The all at once, her body is gone, and I feel the supernovas once again, this time magnified beyond anything I could even imagine.
And then in a moment it passes, a fog, lifting from my mind, and I understand *everything*. I am no longer mortal. I am become Death. And the world will never be the same. | *Tink, tink tink.*
He listened as the rhythmic pattern of digging extended to ancient ears, unused to the disturbance beyond the flittering of the dancing dust that spiralled in the darkness - waltzing in their eternal confinement to the endless tune of silence.
*Tink, tink tink. Tink, tink, tink.*
The sound got closer, faster. More urgent. A decrepit body jerked its neck up in slow, painful contortions as muscle remembered it was not, in fact, part of the rock that surrounded it. Sunken eyes opened after a millennium raised to a spot of rock where the sound seemed to be coming from. Two orbs of pitch blackness struggling against a rockface of the same hue. The sound tunnelling ever closer. He considered that he had lost his mind. His jaw shuddered and cracked as he strained to move his teeth around the dry flesh that comprised the inside of his cheek. He bit down with all his force and felt the flesh rip away. Felt the pain that should have awakened him. But he was already awake. At last.
*Tink tink tink tink, tink. Tink, tink tink.*
The caverns walls cracked, and the dust accelerated their lazy swirls to a frenzied storm as they found a new beat to move to. The man slumped against the opposite wall took a raspy, awful sigh as his lungs remembered how to take in air.
*Tink, tink. CRACK.*
The wall split. A small, sharpened point of metal protruded from the other side of the wall at the epicentre of the crack. The bodies legs cracked and groaned as the legs were reminded of their primary function and with flaking skin and cracking knees the man stood. The hair that had pooled around him followed to the best of its ability, oily and black - a reverse waterfall of oil. By the time he was stood on two unsteady, wavering legs the hair was still pooled around him like an unwashed, hideous blanket.
*CRACK.* *CRACK.* ***CRACK.***
The wall gave way and its rubble poured through to the ground of the chamber. Light, foreign and blinding presented itself to the chamber without consideration for the aeons of darkness that had settled. The man could almost feel the light pushing against him as if willing him to retreat with the darkness. But he only stared into it - those black voids he called eyes seemed unreachable by the light.
A man had stumbled into the chamber under the weight of his own swing. He hefted what resembled a pickaxe in his hands, but not as the body that now stood knew them. He was dressed in strange, beige garbs with a strange beige hat - and he seemed to wear tiny windows in front of his eyes. The body imagined they were for protection. The man coughed several times, as he was not as acquainted with the dust as the body. The dust that was as old as the body and so much, much older than the man with windows on his face. He finished his fit of coughing as several more men and women in beige approached the entrance. Some appeared to comfort the first man - the rest attempted to examine the wall they had just broken through. None saw the decrepit body in the dark side of the room yet. The body shuffled towards them, shambling, barely capable of staying upright at first. Walking would have to be re-remembered by the body that now moved.
The beige men and women all exclaimed in a foreign language on reading the writing on the wall, confused yet awed. They all clamoured for one particular beige woman who they gestured wildly to the wall at. She stared intensely at the wall, then at a stack of small pieces of parchment she held in her hand. She repeated this over and over, occasionally marking things down with a long thin object in her hand that seemed to act as a reed that never ran out of ink. She would pronounce part of the Sumerian words that lined the walls then read them again in that foreign language the rest of them spoke. By the time she finally read the words out fully in the language that he could understand the other beige people had lit magic lights that illuminated his slow advance towards them. The woman had just finished when they screamed.
"Here lies the man who stole ten thousand lifetimes for his own gain. May he live out each one only thinking of his sins. For if the world were to expose him to the light again, he would swallow it up until none was left."
One of the voices only stopped screaming when the body that walked plunged its hand into its owner's throat and ripped away a substantial amount of trachea. The flesh parted easily with the body, like he was pulling away mud from the banks of the Nile. The body now sank to the floor, blood pooling around it. The man who it once belonged to felt his life leave him, but didn't get to see it go before his being was dragged screaming into the body that had torn out his throat. The other beige people kept up their choir of pain and fear.
One by one all the other voices stopped screaming. The cavern was once again quiet. Dark. The dust continued their gentle dance as the blood seeped the sand beneath them, and no-one emerged from the cavern. Only a body. A body that would live another dozen lifetimes.
Once the body saw a camp full of the people in beige, it realised it would be living a hundred more.
Once the body saw a city of glass and metal stretching further then it could see, its ancient lips cracked and flaked as it smiled.
It would be living for a long time. | 2020-05-16T06:27:49 | 2020-05-16T06:16:22 | 79 | 15 |
[WP] You wake up in King Arthur's court with only the clothes on your back. Merlin hands you a box about the size of a pumpkin and tells you it will wish into existence any object from your age, once per day. Camelot will be attacked and destroyed one week from now. Help us, future-man. | Andrew was on the ground, he felt intense fear for the first time in his life, he looked up to the sky as the dragons were demolishing everything.
No, this can't be happening, he thought. He spent the past week preparing for the defense of camelot. Bringing each day modern technology weapons, even the infamous nuclear bomb.
Death was close, he could feel it down to his very bones.
He started weeping and crying upon realizing how vein his efforts were.
Is that all what modern technology could do? Is that how powerless he was compared to magic?
Solving this crisis should have been easy, as he started to recall his first meeting with Merlin
Nothing can resist human intelligence as he used to boast in front of Merlin, telling him how humanity has now been conquering space
Alas, all of this was vain, Andrew was so convinced that this was the past, that he knew what the future was holding. But this wasn't the past.
Multiverse, he knew this world from the comic he used to read when he was young, but this was a complete different universe.
Everything was there to hint him about this eventual turn of event. Different maps, different fauna and flora.
Idiot was all what was on his mind, he was an idiot.
Sonja, Alicia, Erina, those were the names of the girl he used to spend his nights with, thinking that these beautiful women were about to know fate worse than death made him realize the gravity of his own idiocy.
Jumping in front of his was a hideous creature that could kill you with one chop if his razor sharp hands were to touch him.
Oh, finally this is how I die!
However it seems that fate still hadn't abandoned him as Merlin and Arthur appeared just behind him to slay the beast and save him
Not now Andrew, Merlin said. You still have one thing you can bring from your time!
Can such a thing really exist at this point? Nuclear weapons were inefficient, what could I bring back?
Everything you brought was an object, Merlin said, you could try bringing someone!
Now that he thinks of it, that was true! There is still hope! He could call upon the greatest hero of mankind to slay those beasts!
Andrew stood up, forgetting his pain, fueled by a new emotion of hope! He knew what to do, who to call! It was so simple! "MERLIN! I want you to call upon this person!" (Read every first letter of each paragraph)
| "Powder of... oh, *Powder:* Poh... Po-loni.. Polonium-two-and-ten," the wizard read, scrunching up his eyebrows as he slowly enunciated the unfamiliar words. "I know not what this Latin means." He stepped towards the airtight hazard bag.
"Don't touch that!" I screamed. "The hell are you doing? Do you want to kill us all?"
The bespectacled ponce shot me a skeptical glance. "This small container? I am not a beginner in poisons, future-man. Fear not. I shall inspect its contents in my alchemic laboratory to -"
I grabbed Merlin by the robes and shook him, hard. "If you so much as breathe one grain of that powder," I hissed, "No, if even a thousandth of that single grain gets in your lungs - you'll die within months. There's no cure."
He grew white as a sheet.
Beads of sweat formed across my shaking palms. "We- we need to leave," I continued, dragging the wizard from the room. "My timeline had less than a handful of the stuff created. But you? You summoned a whole *box.* Do you have any idea of what you've done?"
"But... what about Camelot?" the wizard whispered.
I rounded on the man. "What about winning?" I demanded. "Kill the leaders, leave the innocents alive? This is how you win. So come up with some excuse. Order that that three-legged patsy Lancelot to sprinkle it on the throne, around the throne room, hell, have him pour it on the damned *crown* for all I care. You believe in fate, right? Then roll with fate and leave Camelot to the crows. Now let's get you and Arthur out of here."
Merlin stared at me in horror, then nodded. | 2016-11-28T06:29:21 | 2016-11-28T04:45:53 | 26 | 15 |
[WP] You are a normal citizen in a relatively unimportant country. One day the goverment starts to act crazy, changing ideology overnight, drafting people for the army and antagonizing their neighbours. The player controlling your country in a strategy game has just begun their world conquest run. | The madman actually did it. Alfred von Heynitz, five time re-elected Syndic (formerly Bürgmeister) of the (former) Imperial Free City of Ulm officially declared himself duke. I should've seen the signs sooner. Perhaps I am getting old, but I never expected it to come to this.
The man is undeniably absolute military genius. Being of a military background, he immediately took to commanding our armies himself, quickly conquering our neighbouring cities of Ravensburg and Württemberg. This however lead to the revocation of our city's title as a "Free City" of the empire. Perhaps I should've taken that as a sign?
Still, von Heynitz had been careful not to incur the wrath of the other princes, so the protection of the emperor was for the time being unnecessary. His resounding victories kept him a popular leader, who filled our pockets with gold after each conquest.
But it has not been without downsides. Our people grow weary of war, and our new subjects threaten to revolt. Though many justify his continued rule with his merits, I say he has gone too far.
The man has eroded our republican institutions since the day he stepped in office. I saw the ambition in the young man's eyes then. I voted for him, advocated for him, thought some more youthful vigor might do our city some good. It was a close vote then, my words very well may have been decisive. My actions then will haunt me for the rest of my life.
And that is why I must right my wrongs, or die trying. I have never been much of a warrior, but I will not return to the *rathus* again to go through the empty motions of our once proud republican establishment. The ambition in which I saw a brighter future for our city now leaves me feeling terrified. I know, as I catch his eye, that he will sacrifice anything to achieve whatever dark and twisted goal he has set for himself.
I suspect he knows that I have become disillusioned, that I blame him, and myself, for the corruption of our city into this twisted apparatus of tyranny. He will undoubtedly placate my colleagues with aristocratic titles, but I will not be so easily swayed. Still, to oppose him openly is foolish. He has already stopped, or at least delayed, a revolt in Ravensburg through violent crackdown and executions.
I am no warrior, but I am an excellent politician, if I do say so myself. Yes, I know what I must do. It will be difficult, and it will be risky, but if I can convince enough of my colleagues, it should work. The difficult part is making sure the "duke" doesn't notice. Through intricate legal amendments, all signed personally by the duke, of course, it should be possible to oust him from his throne.
The trick is to make sure each important article is buried under unimportant changes, and that the whole process is scattered across a variety of legal documents. That way he won't know what's happening until it's too late. He'll have no choice but to accept an assumption of executive office, after all, his majesty will have signed all of them! | Poland lived in peace with her neighbours, having only one army, and trying to keep everyone together in their little brotherhood. The Holy Roman Empire was perfectly calm, with only inter-vassal wars not involving anyone higher than a Duke or Baron. The Rus were content to do whatever they did. All was well, until that fateful day.
Jimmy powered on his PC, put on his headphones, and set up the stream. He launched Crusader Kings 2, and waited for his faithful viewers to arrive. After about ten minutes of country logistics, he began a survey to see what he should do today. The results were mostly, ‘invade everything’. He nodded and began building more Hussar training grounds.
“Włodzislaw! Włodzislaw! The levies have been raised! Come, brother!” The Pole groaned and stood up. He was dishevelled after a long week of Hussar training.
“Wh… what? Who are we fighting?” He asked his older brother.
“The Empire! We attack the Niemcy savages! Come, the Basilisca herself demanded it!” Włodzislaw quickly put his gear on and headed off with his brother.
“What’s with the sudden conflict?” He asked.
“I thought we were keeping the peace with everyone?”
“Not anymore! We march to claim the Empire for ourselves!”
As it turned out, every vassal’s levy had been raised. Armies that did not exist the previous day had been assembled faster than a horse could run, and every neighbouring country had been attacked. Rumour had it that Pruthenija had already been claimed, and Rus was next. Denmark was being sacked, and as far south as the Papal States, Polish armies were fighting against the people they once sought to protect.
Poland changed her name to ‘Imperial Poland’, and wars were happening all over Europe. The Empire fell, and France was next. Włodzislaw thought that this was insane. What had driven his peaceful country into a bloodthirsty war hound? He’d heard that even the Byzantine was crumbling, and that the soldiers set their sites on the Middle East.
“Alright, folks, that concludes the stream for today. Wow, I did *really* good, huh? Anyways, I’ll be doing Warhammer again tomorrow, and maybe some Monster Hunter on Tuesday. I’ll be hosting my girlfriend’s stream now, see y’all~” | 2019-03-10T13:00:44 | 2019-03-10T11:57:27 | 20 | 14 |
[WP] Everyone on their 18th birthday have a dream and they must pick between the red or the blue pill. These pills effect your future in drastic ways. You on the other hand decide to walk the opposite way and find a green pill. You are the first to take the green pill. | I had seen pictures. Animations. Even told about the experience from friends and family. And I knew it was just a dream. But nothing could have prepared me for the cold.
From the two pedestals, both holding up a pill, one blue and one red, a bone rattling gust of air blew, colder than a blizzard. I could only stand there, shivering.
Slowly, a man appeared between the two stands, bald and wearing a tight tuxedo. He had the posture of a gentleman. “You’ve arrived.” To that, I could only nod.
“Good, good. One pill will grant you a fantastic, charming personality, the other will grant a successful life. Choose,” he grinned, as if not noticing the cold.
I hesitated, and his gaze grew less pleasant. “Step forwards, and choose.”
Somewhere in the distance, I heard a voice cry out. The man glared down at me. “Ignore it, and choose.”
I stared to the direction of the voice. The pain I’d heard was something I couldn’t ignore. I glanced at the balding man, who stared, and walked off.
“Come back! Choose, already, **CHOOSE!**”
I ignored him. Whoever, whatever, was out there, it needed help.
**.......**
Hours had passed, and I seemed no closer. Except I could see something in the distance. A small shrine. I dashed forwards, using the last of my already depleted energy to reach it.
As I reached it, I saw an old man sitting at the steps. He smiled, his gray mustache lifting as well. Somehow, the simple action was... Comforting.
“So. Someone arrived... I suppose there may be
hope yet.” He nodded to a new pedestal. This one was wooden, rotten, and looked like it was moments from falling apart. It held a green pill, which seemed as if someone had tried to crush it.
But it felt right.
It was right.
| The Politician [part 1]
"Welcome to the choosing."
"Huh, looks nicer then I expected."
It was a large white room with fountains in the corners, and a few potted plants and a nice chair to sit in.
"Your memories of what pill does what, and what pill you chose will be erased afterwords. You will only know so you can choose. This is just a precaution so you won't tell others."
"Seems fair." I replied
"The red pill, also known as power, will make it easier for you to gain physical strength fron exercise. On the other hand, the blue pill will help with knowledge, making you learn faster."
"Okay, let me have some time to think."
I turned around and saw a door. I slowly walked over and turned the doorknob.
"Don't go in there!" I heard from behind me.
But it was too late. I had already gone through and saw a green pill sitting in a jar. I took it.
"Huh, I don't remember which pill I chose" I thought as I woke up. I didn't feel any difference, so I wasn't sure if it worked or not.
In my next few years I went to college, and became a local politician. With the first few laws I attempted to get passed, they all were. I was going to experiment with this more later.
| 2019-03-05T21:45:00 | 2019-03-05T20:43:42 | 140 | 14 |
[WP] With as much confidence as you can muster, you plant your feet, gaze up at the sky, and cry out a simple command to the expanse above with all your might: “SHOW YOURSELF!!!” After a moment, a calm voice echos from the heavens in reply with a simple question: “Why?” | “SHOW YOURSELF!!!”
•••
Everyone told me I had to have faith.
Everyone told me that I simply had to believe.
Everyone said he works in mysterious ways.
I said, "Bullshit. Everything you've said amounts to God being on the same level as Santa Claus. No, on a *lower* level than Santa Claus because parents will go to ridiculous lengths to make sure their child believes in Santa. Making the miracles happen. Showing their children that Santa is real. Those parents will not lift a finger to help their child believe in God."
"You are not a child!" they rebuked me.
"Compared to what God is purported to be, I am his child, and he has done *nothing* to convince me that he is real."
"That's why it's called Faith," they remarked snidely.
"And what of William?" They froze. "Did William believe?" Oh, yes, he did. "Did he do everything in his power to save his family?" That and more. "And what happened then?" The church kicked him out when he had a screaming breakdown in the middle of services two weeks after losing his entire family. "Did you sanctimonious bastards try to help him?" No, they didn't. "Did you ever think that God expects you to put the same effort into helping people believe in God that you put into Santa?" Sacrilege was their answer. "Sacrilege. Christian charity to the same level as you would for a commercialized Saint is sacrilege? I'll tell you what I think of that!"
And I did without ever once using profanity, taking the Lord's name in vain, or raising my voice.
I got out of that church alive, with two black eyes swollen shut, a broken arm, a fat lip, a concussion, and bruises in places I didn't know I had.
There wasn't a mark on any of them, so why did I do 30 days in jail for assault? No one had an answer for that either. At least when I had the chance to speak with the judge, he had the grace to look embarrassed and away.
My apartment was re-let, and my property sold to pay that last month's rent. My car was impounded and sold for parts.
I went right back into that courthouse and filed multiple civil lawsuits against every stinking one of the bastards involved in this travesty and argued my cases so eloquently that I was awarded damages on top of court and legal fees, as well as the actual value of everything they took from me save one: the value of my faith, if not in God, then in the good nature of my fellow man.
I bought a motorcycle and minimal necessities and left.
They undoubtedly thought the same thing I was, "and good riddance!" I still think I got the better of that deal since I am free, and they are still stuck in that cesspit.
I toured a lot. Saw a lot more that made me sad. And finally found this place: a high rolling hill in the middle of a plain so broad that you can almost see the horizon. There isn't a sign of human habitation that you can see from here. I checked around quietly and found out who owned it. A quiet word with the owner, and I had permission to camp there indefinitely as long as I kept my camp clean. The owner even had a booklet on how to keep a clean camp according to his wishes. The purpose of my camping there was some soul searching and asking God for some answers.
Every Sunday, we would meet on that hill before dawn and watch the sunrise. It's magical. We would spend the entire day talking about anything as though it was the essential thing in the world. I told him what had happened to William and me. He shook his head in sorrow. We talked about what I did and how it made me feel, which was empty. Oh, there were those moments of triumph, but once the money was paid, all I wanted was to get away from there.
We talked about the future. What did I want to do? It kept circling back to that town. The people I knew there was decent folk. The silent ones suffering. The brash youth being led astray. The tough guys who weren't as tough as they thought led to mistakes.
I would go back. I would open a "place of worship," nondenominational, welcoming, helpful, and never judgemental. I did not care who you believed in, who you followed, or what you did so long as no one, not even yourself, was harmed. Come with an open ear, a warm heart, and a helping hand, and you will be welcome.
There was just one last thing I wanted.
I wanted some proof.
Thus, that heartfelt scream on the morning of my last day on the hill.
•••
After a moment, a calm voice echoes from the heavens in reply with a simple question: “Why?”
"Because faith is not enough."
We had every argument I had ever had over the nature of God and the validity of demanding faith as a sign of worthiness.
"Fine. If you are unwilling to support those who believe in you by making your presence and approval plain to all, then I will not profess your faith to anyone."
"Why?"
"Because I refuse to put myself in a position to be told I am no different than the charlatans who loudly profess your faith but refuse to provide proof. Nor will I support a God who lacks the courage to stand up and be recognized."
I'm trembling like a leaf on the inside, but I'm resolute, which carries the day.
"I will visibly support you, but I warn you that the result is your death at the hands of those who put you on this path. No, I cannot change that for you if I would not change it for my son."
•••
In the end, he was right. I was murdered by an assassin paid for by the council of faiths. The discovery of that was the death of every other church in the town save the one I started.
Never accept a faith that has at its core the demand that you do not ask for proof that it is legitimate. Yet do not turn away if the proof isn't flashy either.
((finis)) | Yu Ping held the woman in his arms as she took her last breath. She was his daughter, who had been fatally injured in the aftermath between his and the insect demon Gu Shen's fight. The demon was dead and gone, but his Demon Qi was ravaging the woman's body and eroding it from the inside, and there was nothing Yu Ping could do except be with her as she slumped in his arms.
A feeling of insurmountable rage was prickling at his skin. His eyes reddened and his tears fell like a waterfall. The sky above grew cloudy and dark in reaction to his anger, and lightning arced through the sky as he yelled to the heavens. Why couldn't they save her? He was almost there, he could see where he needed to go, so why couldn't they help? Why? WHY?
"AAAAAARGH" Yu Ping screamed in grief, his enormous Qi at the Mahayana realm sundered the land and sky, and distorted the very fabric of space. He drew his sword, and was about to slice the sky, the last thing his darling daughter had seen, in two.
Just then, a figure appeared in a flash of lightning. Yu Pig immediately noticed it. The figure flew down to land gracefully on the ground in front of him.
'Immortal,' thought Yu Ping. That terrifying aura which was beyond even him, he had to be an Immortal.
Yu Ping stared at this Immortal, his face contorted in fury. He tried to keep his voice calm as he spoke.
"Why? If you were there, then why?" Yu Ping tried to remain calm but it was no use. His voice broke as he yelled at the Immortal in front of him. "Why did she have to die!? My daughter! MY CHILD!"
Yu Ping swung his sword wildly in his rage, driving the sword into the ground and carving out ravines, swinging into the sky and slicing the clouds in two. However, none of this affected the immortal. The sword Qi simply washed over him like a small gust of wind.
Eventually, Yu Ping calmed down a little. He sheathed his sword and turned wearily to the Immortal, who was looking at him with compassion in his eyes. He walked to Yu Ping.
"I understand your rage. I too lost my daughter in battle here in the mortal realm. My empire and an opposing kingdom went to war over something trivial, but it was so long ago now that I can't remember what for.
"My daughter, the princess of the empire, strongarmed me into letting her fight. I gave her all sorts of protective treasures, but in the end a calamity descended.
"The enemy empire used an ancient forbidden technique to summon the soul of their Immortal Ancestor to devastate the battlefield. All of those protective treasures were rice paper in front of the attacks for the Immortal Ancestor.
"And with a single finger, he shredded those protections and pierced her heart.
"Of course, in my rage, I stormed onto the battlefield. I was at the peak of Mahayana, one step from immortality. Not to brag, but I'm quite the genius, and I was invincible in the world. I destroyed the Immortal Ancestor's soul and annihilated the other empire's army. I used my life source and burned it to fight them all, eventually obliterating my potential as well. I sacrificed everything to avenge my daughter."
Yu Ping stared blankly as the Immortal spoke to him, and he took in every word he said.
"Well, after that I found my daughter, and I grieved heavily. For 10 years I refused to leave my palace, and cultivated continuously, but because I had obliterated my potential, I was stuck at the peak of Mahayana. I couldn't even take the half-step to immortality.
"I was furious, and my rage and frustration unlocked something. A sleeping legacy, the legacy of the Demon Slaying Clan's founder, that I was supposed to be the successor of. However, I had never fought a demon before since they were considered an extinct path at the time.
"I couldn't use the legacy, but the information I could glean from the surface of the legacy helped me to restore some of my potential, and I could increase it slowly over time.
"But I could never find anybody suitable to pass the legacy onto, so it gathered webs in my head, unused and almost forgotten.
"But now I have met you, and you are the perfect candidate for this legacy; someone who has an undying grudge against demons, and in your rage you would do anything to annihilate them from the 9 heavens and 7 seas.
"Take the legacy, and avenge your daughter. Obliterate those retched demons once and for all."
Yu Ping processed what he had heard. The legacy of the founder of the Demon Slaying Clan? And the Immortal in front of him was going to give it to him?
For a few seconds Yu Ping was silent. He stared hard at the Immortal, who gazed calmly back. "Will it be difficult?" He asked.
"Incomparably so." Answered the Immortal levelly.
"Will I die?"
"Probably."
"... Is it worth it?"
The Immortal stared for a few seconds before chuckling and answering.
"Absolutely."
Yu Ping was convinced.
"Then give it to me. Please, give me the legacy master Immortal."
The Immortal smiled slightly and said, "My name is Emperor Tang. The founder of the Demon Slaying Clan is called Yu Tian, the Divine Paragon. We can both be considered your masters from now on."
"Yes, master." Yu Ping immediately placed his head on the floor and acknowledged him.
The Immortal pointed his finger at Yu Ping's head, and a small orb of light flew out and into Yu Ping's mind.
The birth of the last True Demon Slayer had begun. | 2022-10-19T00:07:49 | 2022-10-18T21:47:13 | 61 | 22 |
[WP] The zombie apocalypse has come and gone. Humanity has survived and prospered, but with the virus still inside every single human. Centuries in the future, we are at war with an alien race, and they are horrified to learn that we don’t stay dead easily. | Our people were conquerors. The true law of the cosmos is the same as the law in the primordial seas of every world: eat, or be eaten. We understood this in our very cores. When the first contact with beings from another world happened, we **were** amazed. Not because of their powerful weapons (they didn't have any), or vast technologies. No, we were amazed, because they said they came in peace, and wanted to be friends with us. To learn from us. My ancestors recorded that their flavor was flat, but filled the stomach and made us stronger. And of course, their technology advanced us even further.
Soon, we left our world in ships of our own to meet many other species. Each one fell before us. Some were great warrior races like ours, and fought valiantly before succumbing to the inevitable. These we respect and enshrine in our histories and songs. Though weaker, they showed that they too, understood the Cosmic Law.
So when we found your world, and watched your transmissions, and saw that you too understood, we looked forward to the battles. You would lose of course, even though your weapons were formidable compared to most at your level of advancement. Another century or so before discovery, and we could have faced ourselves at our beginnings. How fortunate, we believed, we found you earlier. We began to prepare.
Had we continued to watch as we got closer, we may have learned of your true power. How your hunger was greater than any other we have seen before, how it eclipses even ours. But we were arrogant after millennia of unbroken conquest. The "generals", if you will, of our forces relied upon tactics that had been honed in a thousand campaigns before. Tried and true, these tactics worked. Of course, we had to meet in battle. You ask why not just bombard your world? We had to give you the chance (however slim) to meet us, to defeat us, and then eat your fill and become stronger like us. We simply don't bombard those who can't defend against it. And I am glad we did not.
After the first planet-fall, our hunger for your kind grew swiftly. You are delicious! Truly, every part of humans has a unique taste, and those early samples and the reports of those who ate them whetted our appetite. So we began killing en masse, so that we could start harvesting as much as we could.
And that was the critical point. When the un-butchered meat in our holds awoke and swarmed our vessels, our shock was profound. Not because the dead rose, no. Many species have warriors that fight even after "death", for awhile. On your world, a dead snake can still bite.
The shock was your hunger. Nothing would stop you from consuming, no weapon, no chemical, not even vacuum itself as you crawled along our hulls to get to us. We wept at the beauty of it! We had arrogantly thought that **we** were the ones who understood the Cosmic Law best, that it was our duty to eat and revel in the life it brings. We were but children thinking we were gods. How fortunate to be wrong!
You even weaponized them, sending chemical rockets jammed with your dead to pierce our vessels and consume us. And how swiftly you learned from our empty vessels. By the time the second wave arrived, you were almost on par with us. We brought the might of thousands of worlds to bear on your little system, but we had already lost, for by then we did not want to end you. We cannot destroy such perfection, that would be a sin our kind could not bear. But to do no less than our best would be an insult to you, so we battled and battled, and every battle, you gained more and more on us.
And thus, I, and the remaining few thousand of us, come before you here, to your home-world. We cannot defeat you, we cannot even offer much more than token resistance at this point. Your understanding of the Cosmic Law is such that you complete its rites instinctively. We are here to engage in the rite of Final Meal. Consume us, and then continue following the Cosmic Law and consume all!
...What do you mean you don't want to eat us?
[edit: a word] | The heartbeat was the new thing for mankind. Well, not the heartbeat. But the awareness of it. Something about the virus and it's interaction with hormones and such at puberty. You heard the *lub-dub* in the back of your head. All the time. It was soothing in a way.
Only one in a thousand went insane from it.
I myself always found it soothing, anyway. A pleasant backbeat to work. To reading. To fucking. I'd never had trouble falling asleep since the heartbeat was in the back of my skull. It lulled me like a summer rain at night.
The real problem was it becomes much harder to stay calm when that *lub-dub* started bouncing a heavy metal rhythm in your skull. Like when monsters invade your city and interrupt your bus ride home.
Public radio picked it up first, and blared it's warning announcement through the music and audio books and political rants to broadcast the recorded message.
"All citizens. A stage 2 public emergency has been declared. Military response is being mobilized. Return to your homes and wait for further announcements. Isolation protocol is not necessary at this time."
*Lub-dub Lub-dub Lub-dub*
It was a five minute walk from the bus stop to my apartment building. I was on track to make it at a run in two, despite the frantic scramble off the bus five blocks early, when I saw the creatures.
There were five of them in front of the burned wreckage of my usual sandwich shop. They looked like something out of a video game or an early Pixar movie. Lizardlike. Too many teeth and eyes. Something too clean, too polished about the skin. Tall. Each held it's left arm pointed to me.
*Lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub lub-dub*
The one in front made some kind of sound in it's throat that I couldn't replicate without steel wool and a belt sander. It raised its arm to me.
"Hey...I...I just want to go home...You don't need to-"
I didn't hear a shot, but there was half of an eight inch spike sticking out of me. I didn't remember falling. I was just suddenly looking up at the things, listening to the beat slow.
*lub-dub.......lub...dub....lub....*
The thing was leaning over me, clicking and grating to itself and it's companions when the world came back into focus. I could hear more, down to the individual pieces of particle board collapsing in the burning deli wreckage nearby. See more, like the strange seams of the scales on the face looking down at me. But all that I could focus on was the quiet. That gentle beat in the back of my head was gone.
Taken from me.
**Stolen from me**.
I needed it. I had to have it back. The thing in front of me had something like the beat in it. It wasn't fair that it had that and I didn't. I had to take it. Had to have it. **had to**. **MINE.**
It didn't expect me to lunge up and bite it. It's skin was tough, and the arms trying to pull me away were strong.
Not tough enough. Not strong enough.
It tasted sour and rotten, but that didn't matter. Different as it was when I fed on it I could feel it's beat.
*Lub-dub-dub. Lub-dub. Lub-dub dub. Lub-dub*
But then it slowed, and stilled. And the thing sat up, robbed of its own beat.
It stared at me for a moment, It's eyes were flat and without pupils, but I felt I could see the confusion and loss and hate in them. But that was soon taken over by hunger.
And there were four more creatures with heartbeats to take.
We knew each other now. And we were one in our need. | 2018-09-29T19:15:40 | 2018-09-29T17:48:00 | 222 | 123 |
[WP] You arrive in the year 1000, and all you have are the clothes on your back, a laptop with the entire Wikipedia library, and a solar charger. | Day 1: I awoke in what I can only assume to be a wheat field.. (maybe barley?...whatever..). The sun is low in the sky...east...it must be morning. This is not the first time I've woken to find myself in a strange place, but at least I'm wearing pants...sometimes it's best to focus on the positives during times of confusion...especially when you're this hungover.
After collecting myself I wander through the field until I come across a small farm...or cabin...or shanty. I honestly can't remember seeing a house constructed quite in this manner. I guess maybe it's some kind of makeshift storage shed used to store tools...because it appears to be made mostly of hay, and what I can only assume to be either shit, or smelly mud. I think I'll have to stay here awhile until I figure out a way to call for help..
Day 3: So...it's starting to become clear I am no longer home. I was able to locate a small village, and was able to barter for food by trading some furs (that I stole)...and a few small tools (that I also stole). The local inn/tavern agreed to rent a room to me for the duration of my stay...no price was discussed...so far payment has not been asked for. I figure I'll just hide out here for a few days while I get my shit together...then high-tail it out of here before rent is due. Shitty I know...but what else is there to do? I've hidden my laptop in a small cave north of town...it's dry enough, and unlikely to be found..hopefully.
Day 37: With the help of a local merchant I was able to trade some knowledge in herbal remedies (thanks to the laptop) for a ride into the capital. Once I arrived I proceeded to do odd jobs improving the lives of the townsfolk. One such job caught the attention of the King when I single-handedly ended a horrible plague which had taken many lives. Basically the solution was "Let us try to refrain from shitting directly into the drinking well for awhile...and see if that helps". The idea was a success..and new cases of the illness have fallen drastically in just the last 3 weeks.
Day 257: After earning respect from both the king and his court, I was given the title of "Royal Advisor"...also I serve as "Master of Arms"...my knowledge of battle formations and tactical strategies is unrivaled. Mostly due to the unfair advantage of 15+ years playing Command and Conquer. I even have a apprentice...a giant muscular hulk of a man named Preatoris...although I prefer to call him Tiny. I've organized a group of knights to guard the king at all times. The king wanted to call them the Royal Guardsman..but after much persuasion from me..we settled on the name "Dirty Dozen"...for obvious reasons.
Day 376: The throne is mine. Using a little Wikipedia magic...and some good old fashioned elbow grease...I was able to put together a small conductor using some copper, which I've fashioned into small wires. I etched a small hole in the kings bed chamber...and was able to run the wire from a small closet under his room, through the hole, and into his bath. (Can you believe these stinky fuckers actually bathe together?). I waited until I had built a significant charge in my laptop battery...disconnected it...connected the wires to the correct points for + and -, and fried the sonofabitch. He had no descendants...he had no queen...the poor bastard was all alone. It was easy enough covering up his death...I mean burning alive for no reason while COVERED with water??! Obviously it was the Gods..smiting him for some wrong....or maybe he was a witch? Eh...whatever you need to tell yourself. Of course..who do you think these morons turned to for guidance now that their king is dead?? Me...that's fucking who.. hell, I could have just walked up and put the crown on myself...no one would dare try to stop me...but I'll let them have their ceremonies. I've got better things to think about...BIGGER things to consider...plans to be made.. | I woke up, scratching my beard. It had been three days since my arrival and since my last shave.
*Note to self. Bring a razor next time.*
He still had no idea where he was, no local currency and no real goods to share. While villagers shied away from him, I didn't understand with their fascination with a particular lake, haunted by a witch of sorts. Asking for directions, I made tried to make my way over to the enchanted body of water only to find a terrible surprise.
Approaching the situation with an open mind. "Lindsay?"
"Nice beard dork." She was decades older than me from when I last saw her. "You think you were the only one that knew about Dad's machine?"
Her grayed hair was thinning out, but she looked well. Her figure was thin, but by no means was she emancipated. Her cheekbones protruding out, I was still stunned by her elderly age. "How did you get here?"
"Same way you did. You left the coordinates in the machine. When you disappeared, we thought you had given your handgun a blowjob. That's when Dad revealed his machine."
She was boiling a broth, something awful smelling and then some. "And you followed me." My stomach growled at the sight of the soup. It might not have the aroma of a Michelin star restaurant, but damn did it look good.
"I set the age three decades before you to make sure you knew how to get back. If you want to." A potato splashed as she chucked it into the soup.
"I can't go back. Not after what I put them through." Shaking my head, I just thought about how Mom and Dad would have felt. She was stirring the broth. *When did she learn how to cook?*
"For thirty years, I have prepared. I know you don't want to come back, but at the same time I can't let you live on your own." She tasted the soup, frowning. She sprinkled a few more leaves on it. "You'll need a new name to survive."
"How about Lionheart of Duke Forthsworth?" I smiled at her scowl. "Didn't think that through." I thought of the legends about her, thinking of what to say. Then it just came out. "So, people think you're a witch."
She grinned devilishly. "Of course." Stirring the pot a few more times, she continued. "Appears out of nowhere, no house to be seen. Sometimes even doles out more than a bad bowl of soup. Sometimes swords."
"And has a young humble farm boy come to claim his birthright, begin the English dynasty as we know it?" I giggled at the thought that my sister had been working towards a flipping *fairy tale.*
"No, he's a few years away. But you should consider growing your beard out. Might help the prophecy." Doling out the soup into two bowls, she handed me one.
"May I ask why?" The scrap of facial hair that lined my jaw was already irritating, I couldn't bear to think why it would be desirable to have *more*.
"Because the locals know me as a witch. They'll know you as a wizard. What with the sudden knowledge from your Apple Mac." She took a bite of an anonymous mouthful of soup. "Like I said before, better think of a name."
I looked at her suspiciously, already knowing the answer to my question. "Who do they think I'm supposed to be?
Her last glance filled me with dread. "Merlin, of course." | 2016-12-27T18:00:37 | 2016-12-27T16:27:44 | 128 | 90 |
[WP] For lack of better candidates, someone's parents jokingly named the Norse God Loki as the child's godfather. He decides to take this seriously. | I felt the drop of poison on my face, carving its way through my skin, my bones and my brain.
Eternal pain. My punishment for my many crimes....
The scream died in my throat, my strengh had left me a long time ago, my name was long forgotten, my trickeries had all been exposed. But then, out of nowhere, it came. A tiny whisper carried by the cold wind that had been battering my body for ages. "Loki". Not referring to a fictionnal character, nor coming from the lips of Odin's followers... A whisper calling for me, invoking my name as a godfather. Someone finally, although only partly, acknowledging me as a god. An anchor for me to leave this place, to leave this world. I left my old body behind, and flew through the planes of reality, rushing out of my eternal torment.
There it was, the place where my name was spoken. I had to fly as a pigeon through the cold weather, but I felt, for the first time for ages, alive. I could see it inside : the small feeble mortal that was given to me to protect. The one feeble mortal that shall undone what Odin had done to me. For hours I watched, and finally it was alone. I land in front of the window, looking at him, waiting for this baby to just see me. Slowly he turns, and looks at the window.
The moutain of eternal pain trumbles, and a final laugh comes out of my mouth. The valkyries arrives too late, only to contemplate a cadaver, with a grin on its face.
Somewhere, in a small house, a wife asks her husband : "Honey, did the color of his eyes change ? I never noticed they were green.."
The baby laughed and Fenrir inhaled for the first time in a thousand years, blowing the snow of the Himalayas, the Midgard Serpent opened an eye and the great barrier reef shook, while the old gods looked away.
This time, Ragnarok wouldn't be stopped.
Edit : added a clearer ending for those who aren't familiar to norse mythology :)
Edit 2 : some small grammar mistakes | In hindsight, it was the little things that tipped them off. How, no matter what, if Medeia was blamed for some bizarre act, she was always hidden in plain sight, reading a book or idly playing with her dolls.
Then, there were a few times when the school would call about an "incident" that occurred nearby, like when the sixth-grade boys had fallen into a sinkhole that mysteriously appeared in the soccer field. Or that time when Meddie, as his wife Helga liked to call her, had complained about the cruelty of her librarian in not letting her check out more than one book. The next day, said librarian was found duct-taped to the storage door, books torn to shreds around her.
At first, Helga had jokingly said that Meddie was secretly a wizard, "Like Harry Potter, darling." But as the years grew, and Meddie started becoming blamed for more and more, their concerns grew. And Helga's worries had increased after every family reunion.
And then it all came to a head one night.
Julian North looked into the room, where his daughter sat, reading what looked like a VERY old and VERY expensive book, while a man in a dark green suit and slicked back hair walked her through some of the words, vocabulary like "seidr, pronounced say-dir".
He looked down at his wife, who looked up at him and smiled nervously. "Well... Uncle Loki was never really my uncle, he was just a family friend. How was I supposed to know he was actually a God?" | 2017-11-07T07:10:47 | 2017-11-07T07:09:10 | 807 | 130 |
[WP] "It literally could not get any worse if we summoned Cthulhu, and in fact might improve the situation somewhat."
UPDATE: I must say, I did *not* expect a cheap [Godzilla Threshold](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GodzillaThreshold) prompt to become my most upvoted post. I'm quite enjoying all of your stories so far, so keep it up! | Malcolm looked up at the bloodied and exhausted President, a neat red blossom of blood starting to grow against the white of his silk shirt.
"You have to do this. It's for the good of the world." President Obama said quietly, his words strained against the recent injury.
Overhead the emergency lights rattled again, streams of silt and dust being disturbed from the rafters and ceiling trickling down onto the floor.
"Mister President my Arabic isn't the best and most of this is just gibberish you know..." Malcolm protested, he knew; he was in the very unfortunate position to be one of the few people on Earth that actually knew and he hated every second of it, it burned into his mind and out the other side.
Malcolm knew reality, wasn't.
"I understand." President Obama clutched at his sides gasping a little in pain as he sat himself up tugging desperately on Malcolm, "Nothing else will provide enough power for it; right?"
Malcolm nodded slowly, "No... You tried three nukes last time."
President Obama raised an eyebrow, "Only three?"
Malcolm wrinkled his nose a little, "Yeah, you lost your hand after that and couldn't launch any more."
President Obama gulped looking down his dusty and crumbled suit wiggling the fingers on his right hand before reaching into the blood stained suit pulling out a small, evil book.
"The Necronomicon, source of all that is unholy and evil in the world, bound in flesh and sealed with malicious intent, it will be our weapon now." President Obama pushed the foul book into Malcolm's hand, despite a inky red stain growing across the President's hand, none appeared on the wrinkly, skin cover.
"Summon Cthulhu, it can't make things worse." President Obama winced gesturing to Malcolm.
Malcolm nodded standing up inside the PEOC, most of the other staff members were dead or in such a degree of pain they were useless.
"It's under C." President Obama pointed as best as he could to the book.
"Thanks Mister President." Malcolm sighed riffling through the pages, each leaching out waves of uneasy power.
"What...The..Hell..." Malcolm cursed looking to the 'words' in the book.
"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu!" President Obama prompted, "Make sure you hit the F in Ph'nglui hard or it doesn't work so well."
"Got it." Malcolm replied reading the dread words from the evil tome aloud, waves of reality starting to collapse around him, time and space becoming completely meaningless as a shimmering portal of energy started to form from the nothingness of beyond.
"If this doesn't work..." President Obama groaned looking to Malcolm, "Tell me to try Cxaxukluth next time."
"Of course Mister President, but i'm sure..." Malcolm didn't get a chance to finish as the atmosphere in the room exploded outwards in a explosion of anger, pain and hate.
Tendrils of living mist and water lashed around the room, grasping onto any staff members that were still mostly alive, even clutching at a few that weren't an unearthly screeching filling both the room and the minds of those people still conscious.
President Obama yelled, shouting guttural pained anguish as he passed out.
Malcolm alone stood in the room, grasping the accursed book in his left hand and holding out The Device in his right, energy started to convalesce around The Device a shifting almost magical nimbus of colour spewing forth from it as Malcolm saw waves of reality collapsing in against each other, the PEOC, traces of the dead staff members, President Obama, even the great old one itself, Cthulhu fading into nothingness.
Malcolm took a short breath and looked around, The Device had worked brilliantly, it was 8 minutes ago, the furthest it had pushed him back in time so far.
"Mister President!" Malcolm shouted waving down President Obama, "For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen, Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green!"
President Obama stopped dead in his tracks, the two security agents beside him looking confused as they turned to the Malcolm.
"No time to explain sir, caught in a time loop; I need the Necronomicon, this time you said to summon Cxaxukluth..." | "So, professor, tell me what you think of our new global Overlord Cthulhu? It was summoned to rule over us because a small cult of people believed we cannot rule over ourselves, but what impact has... He? She?"
"The academic community generally refers to Cthulhu as a 'He'. It's been impossible to ascertain his gender, so we picked at random."
"Very well. So, what impact has he had after six weeks on Earth?"
"I think we need to give him a chance. Obviously he was spawned from the depths of hell, but he hasn't really done any evil so far. He has subjugated the majority of countries that surrendered immediately, but so far he has pursued diplomatic means to get the other countries to surrender to his rule. I feel this is a good sign. He could quite easily destroy some of the smaller countries, yet his refusal to do so shows that he could very well be a benevolent ruler."
"Do you believe other countries will eventually bend to his will without violence?"
"Well, it seems that as time goes on, more and more countries are surrendering to his rule. With this added political pressure from fellow countries to surrender, I believe that even countries such as the US and Russia will submit to his leadership. Don't expect it to happen soon, but with the greater part of Europe already bowing to his whim, I can't imagine that there will be many long-term hold-outs."
"And what do you have to say about his minions? They have already rampaged in some areas and killed and eaten people, is this not a sign that we need to fight back?"
"Well, if anything, I feel they may be the most invested in the survival of the Human Race. I mean, if we were to die out, there would be nothing left for them to eat. Sure, certain people will suffer, but hopefully we will be able to reach an arrangement where they eat only those assigned to death row, or perhaps humanity could arrange a tributing system, or perhaps allow them to farm certain communities for their food. Either way, this will be good for the economy. The demon's need to eat the flesh of humans will mean a reduction in population, so the state will be less hard-pressed to support those that the drain funds away from decent, taxpaying workers, and of course it will mean more jobs in order to be able to provide for the hell spawn."
"You mentioned tributing, and that has instigated quite a debate on who should be sacrificed to the evil overlords, do you have any opinion on who should be sacrificed?"
"Well, I believe that it should be decided either by a referendum of the people, or the governments should come together to decide what is best for the people. Personally I support a random tributing system, with obvious exemptions for certain necessary people. This would be those such as doctors, teachers, and others that are needed for our society to thrive."
"And what about the promises that Cthulhu made about 1000 years of darkness and suffering? Should that be taken seriously?"
"I don't think so. We believe that he is making such bold gestures in order to exemplify the fear that he needs for countries to surrender. Once he has subjugated the entire human race, we believe he will calm down significantly, and world leaders can extend the olive branch of friendship and come to a compromise with the great overlord."
"Thanks, I'm sorry but we are all out of time. Thanks so much for speaking tonus today professor."
"Thanks, it's been a pleasure."
"Up next, how to stop yourself from being eaten. One man claims that he has discovered the secret to keep the evil minions from eating you. That's coming up right after the break." | 2016-12-22T03:15:31 | 2016-12-22T02:52:38 | 16 | 12 |
[WP] It’s been weeks since your friend returned with godlike powers, unwilling to explain how. She is however getting increasingly frustrated by you not noticing her making the move on you. | (Part 1/2)
It was hard to focus on the screen, all things told, which was strange, given how familiar everything was. Melissa’s apartment still had that faded off-white paintjob, the refrigerator still issued its low drone that was audible even here, in the living room, and her couch was still weirdly lumpy. As I double-tapped the d-pad and watched my character evade another one of Mel’s attacks, I considered how so much of her was still the same. She still chewed her bottom lip when focusing or playing from behind. She still thrust her controller forward when attacking, as if the physical motion could lend more momentum to her character’s strikes and blows. She… she still wasn’t really that great at Smash Bros.
“AW COME ON! What the actual *hell*? What’s even the point of the game if your stupid side-A has that kind of reach? The people who balanced this game are a bunch of monkeys.” She socked me in the arm, hard. And she was still a sore loser. I chuckled at her tirade and put the controller down, rubbing where she’d struck.
“Gah, Mel, superpowers or no, your punches hurt.”
She stuck her tongue out at me.
“Aww, wimp. Here, you want me to kiss it better?” I shook my head. Mel was probably one of the biggest flirts I knew. She loved riling me up, and got a huge kick out of turning my face into a tomato. I did my best not to give her the satisfaction this time, and tried to change the subject.
“Here, let’s take a break, huh? You got anything to drink?” She smirked, and even the curve of her grin was familiar, every bit the Melissa I’d been friends with for years. Then she snapped her fingers, and a can of my favorite beer materialized right in my lap, cold enough for me to yelp as it chilled my thigh.
“Augh! Hey, not cool!”
Mel favored me with another long and sly grin. “Actually, it’s really cool! Chilled suds for my best bud, for you to drink or ice your poor little arm with! Because I’m such a kind and considerate friend. Besides, it’s your prize for beating me!”
I rolled my eyes at her and sipped at my drink. It’d only been a few weeks since Mel came back from her vacation. I went over to pick her up from the airport, and joked with her that surely her time abroad must’ve changed her. It wasn’t until we got into the car that she started showing me all the insane quasi-omnipotent powers she’d obtained, somehow. She could float, or fly, if she wanted. She changed my eyebrows to neon-pink, and thankfully deigned to change them back. She got my car’s A/C working again, after the shop had said it was a hopeless cause. And now…
“Yeah, I guess it’s not every day I beat a literal goddess at Smash.”
Mel was silent, and as I turned toward her to look for a reaction, I found her looking back at me. There was something in her eyes, but then she blinked, as if she realized I was starting back at her.
“Yeah, real surprising a no-life dork like you is better than me at video games,” she threw back, several beats too late. Another snap punctuated the ensuing silence, and she held her can up.
“Hey, cheers man. To another week under the belt.”
I clink my can against hers. “Another week, ha. It’s bizarre to me that I still see you in class, Mel. You’re an omnipotent superbeing now. Why do you still bother go?”
Again, for a brief moment, my imagination projects something flashing across her face. “I mean, I gotta keep up appearances, right? Plus, I’d miss all the times you fall asleep right in front of the prof if I started skipping!”
My face burned a little. That was only one time! Two, at most. But I couldn’t think of a witty rejoinder, because Mel had started shifting around on the couch. She pointed at my lap.
“Hey, is this seat taken?”
Again, I chuckled at her antics as I opened my arms for her to lay against my chest. Since we became friends, Mel was always a cuddlebug. At first I found it really strange, but over time it became a cherished tradition of our friendship. Bad days, crappy dates, breakups, fights with the boss at work or the project members in class, all of them could be washed away with a platonic embrace. Cuddles really did fix everything, excepting only automobile air conditioners. And truth be told, I always secretly looked forward to getting to hold Melissa. It felt simple, and tender. And I liked the way her hair smelled.
“So, how’d your date go?” She mumbled, somewhat sleepily, from beneath my chin where she had tucked herself. She squirmed a little, trying to get comfortable and find her favorite spot.
“Oh, with Vanessa? Eh, we agreed it wasn’t going anywhere. She’s super cool, but we’re better off as just friends, you know? Like you and me!”
Melissa stiffened, and I felt a tremor shake the apartment. Did I say something wrong?
“Yeah, ha, like you and me.” Suddenly, she pushed off my chest and out of my arms. Immediately, I missed her warmth. Was she angry with me? She stood up from the sofa.
“Hey Mel, are you ok?” I asked, reaching my arm out after her.
I started feeling raindrops patter against my arm, despite the fact that we were indoors. I didn’t bother looking up at the small cloud that had formed above the living room, instead staying focused on her.
“Mel, what’s wrong? I’m right here for you.”
She still smiled at me, but this one was distinctly watery.
“You’re the biggest goddamn idiot I know, you know that?” | Running to school while eating toast. An aesthetic choice I'd always appreciated, but never particularly felt obligated indulge in. I just found it easier to wake up earlier. So I sat in my apartment eating toast and watched the city pass me by out the window. And then Carla lept onto my balcony and knocked on the glass door. "It's open" I called. Now Carla, frequently used to indulge in the 200m toast in mouth sprint. Though sometimes it was an apple, or a granola bar, or a toothbrush if she was having a good day. Then she went on holiday to some place I can't pronounce and came back with superpowers she refused to explain. Shockingly, if I was to make a list of the oddest things she'd ever done, this would not make the top ten.
"Heyyy Melvin" she sang sweetly. "Want to fly to school with me?" she asked. I swallowed a mouthfull of pancake. "No Carla" I replied, "You know I get motion sickness, and you fly like a suicidal BMW driver. I'll take the e-skooter". "Awwwww!" Carla exclaimed "But the e-skooter is soooooo lame". I rolled my eyes. Then, like she always insisted on doing for reasons that have always escaped me, she grabbed my half full glass of apple juice and downed it. "See you in lit 101" she said, then she jumped off the balcony again.
---
I took my seat in the lecture hall. Carla, despite having the power to freaking fly, was still somehow late. I saved her a seat. Some blond girl tried to steal it. I moved three rows back and saved her a different seat. She arrived 15 minutes later eating food out of a chick-fil-a bag. God knows where she got it. I was fairly certain she didn't buy it, her being a socially conscience consumer. I patted the seat next to me and she skipped over and took it.
"How are did you manage to be late? You left before I did and you can fly!" I asked. "Well I wanted to visit my grandmother, so I was heading out by her direction, then I saw some kids racing motorbikes so I flew to Johan's house to ask if I could borrow his motor cycle so I could show those kids what real motorbike racing looks like but on the way I hit a pidgeon and had to take it to the vet" she explained. None of this explained the chick-fil-a food. I didn't ask about it. I was afraid of the answer. Instead I laughed. And she laughed with me. Typical Carla.
The lecturer, for reasons I was too busy laughing and joking with Carla to remember, prattled on about the the simularities between Stephanie Meyer's New Moon and William Shakesphere's Romeo and Juliet. I was only alerted to this fact when Carla, mid sentence, stopped and said "Aww that's so sad". I turned to the lecturer, who had turned the whiteboard into a conspiricy board and for some reason, none of the photo's of actors from the movie adaptation of either work which she was using to represent the characters had any clothes on. Being friends with Carla, this wasn't even the strangest thing I'd seen this morning, so I turned my attention back to her.
"What's so sad?" I asked. "They like, didn't realize how close they were to love" she said, smiling coyly and fluttering her eyelashes. "Yeah", I mused, "But if they weren't a pair of emotionally immature wack jobs who jumped to the most extreme solution immeadiatly and without the weakest attempt at basic detective work there'd be no story". She pouted. "Why do you have to suck the fun out of everything?" she asked. I chuckled.
---
I met up with Carla at my appartment again after collage was done for the day. Despite her speed advantage, again I arrived first. I raised an eyebrow to her tardiness. She just pointed over her sholder with a small smirk. I looked out the window and saw the sky dominated by a large flaming heart shape. I groaned.
"Carla, please tell me you didn't put flamable material in the sky and then set it on fire". She frowned. "Why not?" She asked. "Because you'll probably set someone on fire" I replied. "Relax" she said dismissively, "it'll burn itself out before it reaches the ground. I did math". I groaned inwardly. Carla had once tried to divide 27 by zero and when her calculator had inevitably errored, she'd tried to work it out by hand. It took her two hours and 3 whole refil pads to work out she wasn't getting anywhere. I sighed again. "Carla, why did you put flaming material in the sky?" I asked, exasperated. "Because it's romantic" she replied. I slowly blinked. "I will never understand romance." I groaned.
"Are you still on about that aroace crap?" she asked. I looked to her, confused. She had said some odd things in our time as friends, but this felt out of character. "What?" I asked. "I mean I thought surely you'd have grown out of that by now" she continued, with the same baffling obliviousness as the our twilight fangirl lit professor explaining her conspiricy. "No?" I replied, slowly drifting from confusion to irritation. "People don't grow out of who they are?" I said. "Oh" she said. She visibly deflated somewhat. "Excuse me, I think I hear someone barbecuing eggs and I wanna go get some before they…" she said, getting quieter with every syllable till she trailed off into a whisper. Then she turned her back, took a run out the window and flew off into the night. | 2022-02-24T12:01:42 | 2022-02-24T11:33:14 | 49 | 16 |
[WP] Adapt a famous fairy tale so it has a realistic ending.
I'm about to go to sleep. Bedtime story!... Except that I won't read anything until I get up. Happy Saturday. | And the Prince, after battling with the dragon, climbed up to the highest tower to rescue the lady of great legend. She had fiery red hair, and a glow to her skin as of the moon itself.
"My beauty... My princess.... My love." The Prince bowed down to her, resting on one knee. "I have come to rescue you, fairest of maidens. We have been sworn to each other's love since long ago, and if it be your wish, as I have traveled the Two Kingdoms, the vast Plains of Armaunor and crossed the treacherous Mountain of World's End, I bid you, please come back so we may live our days in righteous peace and royal majesty."
The princess stared at him, slack-jawed. Then she stuck her finger up her nose, pulling out a monstrous booger that might as well have been the size of the dragon which had just fallen to the prince's sword. She wiped it on her dress. The prince saw several stains where past boogers had been wiped off.
"Read me a story."
The prince looked at her. "M...My lady?"
"A STORY, A STORY, READ ME A STORY!" The princess began to jump up and down on her bed, repeating this demand louder and louder.
The Prince looked upon her bedside table, noticing a pile of children's books. The handsome Prince Bartholoemew, always cunning of mind and ever so swift of thought, began to realize what being locked in a room since the age of seven must really do to one's mind.
"Aw, fuck." | "Please follow me Mrs Mary."
He led her into a square room, bright white light filling it.
"Ma'am. I know this is hard for you, but we need your help identifying these items."
"I understand." She said, her voice choking, trying to hold back tears.
The officer produced the first bag.
"Do these belong to your mother Mrs Mary?"
Her eyes welled up, as she nodded her head in the affirmative.
The officer produced the second bag.
"And do these belong to your daughter?"
She could not hold on any longer. She burst into tears as she held the bag with the little red cape.
> This is my first ever WP. Be gentle please. Also English isn't my first language so please be kind enough to point out any grammatical errors.
Edit:words
| 2014-03-29T11:38:58 | 2014-03-29T11:20:59 | 28 | 14 |
[WP] You wake up on September 22, 2018 in place you’ve never been before. You can’t remember what happened, everyone you ask doesn’t remember the day before, either. It becomes an international mystery. It seems no one can remember the 21st night of September. | Liam had a dream about the old days, when he was a truck driver. It was back before automation took over. He was driving down an open road on a beautiful day in the fall. Lush reds and oranges framed his view for as far as he could see. It was so vivid and beautiful that he didn't want the image to fade from his mind. He was hoping that, if he kept his eyes closed, he would slip back into the dream. But, he knew eventually he would have to wake up and face the world.
Liam heard his phone buzz, and with his eyes still closed, reached for it on his nightstand, only to find that his nightstand wasn't there. He was shocked and confused when he opened his eyes to find that he was in a room completely unfamiliar to him. It was a plain looking bedroom with white walls and beige carpet. There was a window to the right of the bed and daylight was creeping through it's blinds. On the opposite wall was a closed door, and to the right of that was a closet. Liam quickly stood up, and walked over to the window to peer outside. He was in, what appeared to be, a neighborhood of townhomes. Each of which was exactly identical and each of which was eerily perfect. Liam turned around and noticed his phone was on the floor next to the bed. The first thing he noticed when he picked it up was the date.
*Saturday, September 22nd*
It felt like a weight was pressing on Liam’s shoulders. Like the force of gravity suddenly doubled, demanding more strength from him to stand. He sat back down on the bed. His mind was racing trying to recount anything from the day before. But, he couldn’t remember a single thing. In confusion and panic, Liam unlocked his phone and dialed 911.
“We’re sorry, but this number has been disconnected or is not in service.”
The air suddenly felt thicker. Liam felt like a dark cloud was descending over him, and he was losing hope. He suddenly remembered that his phone buzzed when he was waking up. He navigated to his messages and found a text from a number he didn’t recognize.
“Are you there Liam?”
Liam responded back. “Who is this? What is happening to me?”
Liam decided to try calling the number that texted him, but before he could, he received a new text.
“I know you’re confused Liam, but just stay calm, you’re doing great. This is Dr. Howl. Do you remember me?”
Liam was frustrated by the response. He didn’t remember a Dr. Howl, and he still didn’t have any answers. He couldn’t help feeling like a lab rat in a meticulously controlled experiment.
Liam responded. “No, I don’t remember you. I don’t know how I got here. I need answers and I’m not going to waste time talking to you, if you can’t give me that.”
The next text took longer than the first reply. Liam waited patiently for almost a minute before his phone buzzed again.
“Liam, it never gets easier to tell you this. 10 years ago, after you were let go from your job, you stole a truck. You put it into manual mode and drove it 200 miles before you fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into a tree. We were able to save you but you fell into a coma, and have been in a coma ever since. About 5 years ago our hospital was given access to a technology that allowed us to put our comatose patients into a simulation. But, not without its flaws. Patients never remember anything from the previous simulation. I’m sorry to say that we’ve had this conversation every day for the past 5 years. We’re working on a way for patients to retain their memory from the previous simulations, but we’re just not there yet. I know this is hard to take in, but try to live today like it’s your last.”
Liam finished reading the text and tried to take it all in. Before he could think of anything to say back, he received another text.
“Oh, and look outside”
Liam spent the rest of the day driving his truck on the open road, on a beautiful day in the fall.
​
Edit: After writing this whole thing, I just realized that the prompt calls for September 22nd 2018. I'm an idiot. | Oh, boy. Another Saturday evening drinking ram's blood and doing Gregorian chants with the folks. They say you can take the boy out of the Pagan moon-worshiping cult, but you can't take the Pagan moon-worshiping cult out of the boy, or out of Clearwater County, Idaho, despite the best attempts of one State Marshall Susan Hernandez and her loyal hound dog Boone. So here I am, dancing around in sheepskin with my parents and their friends, hollering insults at the Sun, the devil-star that, in its gaudy brightness, thinks it can upstage His Lunar Majesty.
"Hey, fuck you, you goddamn showoff!" my dad shouts, shaking his fist at the rotten stellar bastard.
"You think you're better than us? Just because you can do nuclear fusion and we can't? Well you aren't!" shouts my Aunt Vivienne, throwing an empty can of Diet Rite in its general direction.
"Yeah, I can do nuclear fusion right now! Just watch me!" says my dad's friend Gary. Gary puffs up like some kind of goddamn pufferfish, trying to replicate the conditions of extreme heat and pressure that are necessary for nuclear fusion. He can't, obviously, so instead he takes a swig of rum and falls over on his dumb face.
Eventually, of course, the Sun sets and the Moon, in all its nightly glory, rises. For a second, the setting Sun and the rising Moon are both visible in the sky. That's when shit gets weird.
"Hey, those assholes down there are talking shit about me again," the Sun says to the Moon. When the Sun talks, a big cartoony mouth opens up, like Garfield the Cat when he's eating, except it takes eight minutes for light from the Sun to reach Earth, so we don't see that yet.
"Oh, Christ," says the Moon. "Is it that stupid cult again? It thinks you're evil and I'm God. It doesn't understand that we're both just people."
"Yeah," said the Sun. "I volunteer at animal shelters on the weekend. I'm not all bad."
"And I killed Neil Armstrong with that moon virus that took forty years to incubate. I can be a real stinker."
"Hey, you want to fuck with them?"
"Do I!"
The next roughly thirty-one hours of my memory are missing. When I woke up on September 22, I was on å røcky cliff in Finland, and I had no idea how I'd gotten there. I looked at my reflection in a pool of water. Someone had drawn the phrase, "SUN RULES" with Sharpie marker on my left cheek. There were several empty Moon-Pie wrappers around me. I was totally naked and one of my buttcheeks was missing.
When I got back to civilization, I found out that everyone had a similar story. No one knew what had happened the previous day. Most had some kind of sun- or moon-graffiti on their body. Some had woken up surrounded by Moon-Pie wrappers, others by empty bottles of Sunny-D. Everybody was missing one of their buttcheeks. No one remembered anything, but the consensus was clear: the twin bastards in the sky had played a mean joke.
When I got back to Idaho, the pagan cult didn't feel much like worshiping the Moon anymore. Instead, we worshiped a rock we found for a little while, and then a goat that looked kind of like Charlie Chaplin, and finally this guy Chris who works at Best Buy. Eventually we gave up and became athiests, learned to code and moved to Palo Alto. What happened on September 21, 2018 will always haunt me. But what haunts me even more, is ghosts. | 2018-09-21T12:01:19 | 2018-09-21T10:46:54 | 54 | 28 |
[WP] Every "walks into a bar" joke occurs in a single bar. You're the bartender and your shift just started. | I sat in my car as the engine died. Enjoying my last moment before starting my shift. Taking a deep breath, I got out and headed to the bar. As I reached the entrance, the door opened and one of our regulars walked out. "Already had your fill today, O'Connor?" I said to him.
He mumbled something and stumbled down the street. He'd probably be back soon. With that Scottish friend of his. I went in and got ready for my shift. Murray was relieved to see me. It was finally time for him to go home. "You will never guess what happened today," he said as I went behind the counter.
"I probably can," I said. At this point, what surprised me most was that things still surprised him.
"A bear came in today," he said, expecting me to react.
"Did you tell him that bar moved to Hudson's Avenue?" I asked.
"Not that kind of bear. An actual bear. A grizzly bear. It actually walked up to the bar and ordered. It took a long time, it waited about five minutes between every word, but it actually spoke."
I've served the bear a few times. It was at the point where I would hear someone scream in fear and I'd get the bear's usual drink ready. "Alright, you just head home and rest," I told Murray. "I'll handle it from here." He left, still traumatized by serving a bear. He looked on in horror as a horse came in as he was leaving. He looked over to me, silently asking if I was seeing it too. I just waved him goodbye. Somehow he was still shocked by all this. To me it was just the daily grind.
The day went on as normal. The usual clientele and the usual conversations. People discussing religion. People ordering drinks for inanimate objects. Animals ordering drinks. People talking about their sexual exploits. A group of strings came in, but I quickly threw them out. They forgot their lifetime ban.
Finally it was time for last call. The people finished their drinks and headed out. I cleaned up and check the tip jar. A priest, a rabbi, twelve blondes, five blacks, three types of scientists, an entire barnyard of animals, and Jesus Christ walked into a bar, and not one of them tipped. "Is this some kind of joke?" I said in disgust. | Years I've been working at this damn joint now. Why? Hell if I know. I think I used to, but that was a long time ago. Probably forgot sometime between the 380th and 452nd time that stupid horse came in here.
I've seen it all. People from every nationality, holy men from every religion... Pavlov every now and then. Always leaves every time the damn door opens without paying for his drinks. I really oughta get rid of the ringer, see what he does then.
Today we're fairly empty, which I'm thankful for. I still get paid, and I don't have to deal with those idiots who always run right into a metal pole for the thousandth time. Turns out the human body can take a lot more concussions than one would think. I'd ask one of my regular doctors about it, but he's not here today. The only two patrons are some nerdy lookin' guys in one corner, wearing white lab coats and glasses. Chemists, judging by their conversation. All things considered, nothing too bad. Better than that damn horse at any rate.
One of them chuckles a bit at what his companion just said, and what appears to be a cloud of subatomic particles enters the bar. The man finishes laughing and responds, "All right, that was pretty good, but listen to this one. So, a gun-type fission weapon walks into a bar..."
Wait, I think. Wait wait wait wait wait. Unfortunately, I've heard this one before, and I'm not a huge fan of the punch line. I open my mouth to interrupt the man, but before I can make a sound that damned bell rings.
Shit. | 2018-01-31T21:31:26 | 2018-01-31T21:30:08 | 117 | 18 |
[WP] Every person in the world develops a weird mutation/power the day they turn 16. Everyone's powers are always different, some more insignificant than others. You turn 16, and watch as all your friends discover their newfound ability's. That is, until you discover the severity of your own. | When i reached 16 I had high hopes. The basic process a person about to obtain a power went through was being put into a kind of prison cell and, for the first 24 hours after the exact time of your birth 16 years ago, monitored by a team of doctors who would categorize your power with its own unique title and level. ranking from 1-10, most powers were around a 5, meaning 'has a mediocre power' or 'can use their power to an extent comparable to that of a fully capable level 5'. powers were categorized as 'elemental', 'mind-bending' and 'self-modification'.
My parents both had mind-bending abilities, my father having telekinesis and my mother having telepathy. Having two mind-bending parents, it was predicted by the doctors that I would have a level 6-8 mind-bending ability. I waited anxiously as the time drew closer. The doctors stood in an above balcony protected by 5 inches of bulletproof glass to ensure they couldn't be harmed if I happened to have a high level destructive ability. My mind kept going over all the powers I could get. Would I be a level 7 pyrotechnic? or would I be a level 3 barely able to become invisibility. The countdown clock at the end the room was 3 hours off one day after I was born. some level 1's cant even use their powers, could I be one?
Suddenly a siren went off. Something was seriously wrong as that siren meant my ability was doing damage to sensory equipment. One of the doctors reached for the intercom but another stopped him, all ten of them seemed to be having an argument. The siren was still going off, it was starting to hurt my ears so I tried to get the attention of the doctors. None of them noticed me until a huge crack developed in the glass. I hadn't even realized it but the ground was starting to vibrate.
One of the doctors started talking on the intercom but it sounded incredibly distorted. "Stop using your power! you'll kill us all at this rate!".
That's when I realized my power,
Resonance | Tonight was my night; my 16th birthday. Finally, after what felt like a lifetime of waiting, it was my time to shine. I had waited almost a year for this day, ever since my best friend Andrew discovered in January that he could fly. I had envied him at first, being the first in the tenth grade with a power. As time passed I was jealous of what it said about him. If powers are a reflection of our character as scientists believed, I came to envy what this said about his life. He was free, he was pure and he was without a care in the world. What did he know about pain? of being beaten by your father every day for imagined sins and infractions? Of having to steal your best friends allowance to wear decent clothes? of being labelled by girls as a 'creep' and of your few friends pitying you?
But times had changed. New Years eve, my birthday, had arrived and I smiled at my reflection. I wondered what my power would be. Super strength for my strength through the hardships? Mind reading for my ability to empathize? I was entertaining these thoughts when my phone rang.
*Hello?*
*Hey it's Andrew here, you ready for the party?*
*Sure, pick me up in ten.*
*Hello?*
I heard static and a click as my phone died. I moved it away from my ear, and then smiled.
Tiny cracks ran along the screen and continued to spread from where my hand held the phone. I willed the cracking to stop, and it did. | 2015-01-22T00:45:06 | 2015-01-21T21:42:59 | 15 | 10 |
[WP] You get abducted by aliens, but as they preparing to probe you, they scan you only to discover a terminal disease that they have never seen before and they can not cure. The aliens instead end up befriending you and taking you on one last adventure traveling across the galaxy. | ######[](#dropcap)
"What's that?" You point to the swirling ball of light to your left. The vivid colors blend together in intricate, delicate spirals of red, blue, and pinpricks of white, not unlike the ones you created from glass. You can still feel the molten heat on your fingertips through the thick gloves.
"It's a collapsing nebula." Aesha looks up through the glass with you, her wisps of antennae moving back and forth as she stares straight ahead. Her eyes are completely black, with no pupils or irises to speak of. "Space is filled with clouds of gas. And when they grow too large, gravity takes hold, leading them to collapse."
"I see." The image of chubby hands grasping yours makes your eyes dim. You were never good with goodbyes. And now, you'll likely never get one. "That's...sad," you say. You're unsure why you're telling this alien what you're thinking, but it's release, in a way. "I never much liked endings."
"All things end." Aesha's voice is soft as she says this. You look over, and despite the lack of emotion in her face--Sharzis do not show emotion, she told you earlier--there is a sadness to the way her antennae droop. You look away. Just because they do not show emotion does not mean they do not feel it. "But that does not mean everything ends."
You cock your head to the side, unsure of what kind of wordplay she's performing.
Aesha points to a speck of white in the center of the nebula. "Do you see that?"
You nod.
"When a nebula collapses, a star is born." She turns toward you, and maybe it's your imagination, but you can see in her dark eyes the reflections of millions of stars, a galaxy in them.
 
"It is not the end. It is the beginning."
***
r/AlannaWu
| Klaag, we have a problem.
Eh? You get used to the begging, just mute your translator.
It's not that. Look.
Where's his Gargen?
I dunno, where did you put it?
Idiot, you're doing the operation.
But I haven't even opened the monkey yet!
Well it's not in him. He's got a lot of spunk for a Gargenless chimp.
Look at him kicking, oh isn't that just cute. You know they make movies about this.
Movies?
Yeah, video recordings with made up stories.
On spaceships?
Yep.
On Imperial Kur'thar Visionary Expeditions?
Well, not exactly but close enough.
Close enough?
You know, the human gets abducted, makes a heroic escape and leaves the alien ship in an escape pod to alert his government about the impending visitors.
Did you just make that up?
No.
Well where's it from them?
Oh, I just got distracted and started narrating what our buddy has been doing for the last five minutes.
For fuck sake, Scorf. Get the retriever drone online. We're not letting a Gargenless primate get away from us. Time to make history.
Sigh. Roger that, Overseer Klaag. Retriever drone away. I sure hope this has a happy ending. | 2018-12-12T13:20:45 | 2018-12-12T11:10:30 | 39 | 25 |
[WP] You live in a world where magic exists, however, you must sacrifice a memory in order to cast a spell. The more memories, or the more precious a memory, the more powerful the magic. You just woke up with no memory save a name. | I opened my eyes, puzzled by the harsh glare around me. Of course, it was only the sun - but you must understand, I had no memories to speak of. I was like a newborn, flailing helplessly in the face of a completely unfamiliar world. To me, the sun was completely new.
Instinctively, I shielded my eyes with my hands, before regarding them with surprise. They were covered in a material I did not recognize, a color with a name that flitted away from me like wisps of of fog.
I moved my head from side to side, the way a turtle flipped on its back does. Some gut feeling told me that I was not in a good place, and I needed to leave as quickly as possible. But how? I did not remember how to walk.
Hearing my breath coming in ragged pants took me by surprise, and the pitch and pace increased until I was hyperventilating. I closed my mouth and swallowed with great difficulty. When I opened it again, a word fell out.
*"Leander."*
The name echoed through the forest, chasing birds through the trees and stirring leaves on the wind. Somehow, I managed to prop myself up and look around, my limbs as shaky as a newborn fawn's.
"Leander," I repeated, this time with more conviction. "Leander. Leander!" Who or what this Leander was, I didn't have a clue, but I knew they were important. After all, all things had names, whether they be assigned by beast, man, or the bright fragments of magic themselves. I dragged myself towards a nearby tree, marveling at the sensations of dirt beneath my fingers and the smell of grass. With considerable effort, I managed to support myself on the tree, and leaned against it, panting. Once more, I let the name slip from my lips.
"Leander."
Suddenly, a bright light appeared, brighter than even the sun when I saw it again for the first time. It was not the warm blaze of a hearth, or the cold glow of a will-o-whisp - it was simply pure light. From out of the light stepped a man, clad in white so pure it made all colors seem insignificant.
"Well," he remarked, "Congratulations, mortal. You're officially the first human to summon me to the earthly plane."
Of course, I could only gape at him, completely unable to understand his speech.
"Leander," I repeated.
Leander rolled his eyes. "Yes, that's me. No doubt the summoning took a massive toll on your memory. Allow me to spare us both the bother of you relearning what you deem 'the basics'."
He snapped his fingers, and I gasped as years of memory flooded back into my brain. How to walk, talk, eat, cast a spell - but to my dismay, no memories of myself, not even my own name.
Leander sensed my dismay, and smirked. "Oh, come now, you weren't really attached to those, were you? Trust me, you're better off without them."
I stared at Leander with something approaching sorrow, but I didn't have the name for it. However, the god ignored my pitiful gaze as if it were a mere dust mote.
"Fortunately, you were prepared for this eventuality, and you gave me instructions should you lose your memory of why you summoned me." Leander waved a hand idly. "The kingdom is under attack, no mortal can stop Salu the Dark, blah blah blah. Off we go, then."
"No."
For an instant, Leander's face showed something other than boredom. "What was that?"
"I said no." My voice was firm now, as was my stance. "You're going to help me find my memories, and get them back."
Leander regarded me with an expression that bordered amusement. "Your memories power your magic," he said, as if speaking to a child. "When you cast a spell, you lose them."
"So spells contain memories," I replied. "If I find the right people and take their spells at the instant they're cast, then I get their memories of me. That's close enough."
"And you're not bothered that they won't remember you?"
I shrugged. "I don't remember them, so I can't be bothered by it."
To my surprise, Leander threw his head back in laughter, wiping a tear from his pearl-white eye.
"I knew you were quite something when you summoned me," he chuckled. "Your average mage doesn't have the will to perform a ritual that bloody. But now? I see your heart for what it is - nothing but blackness."
"And?"
Leander grinned. "They do say opposites attract." He stuck out his hand. "Nice to finally meet you, Salu. We've heard great things about you on our plane."
I took Leander's hand, the light illuminating my veins as I clasped it. "Nice to meet me, too." | "Michael!" I shouted, as cold, thick hands held me down to the bed. "Michael!"
"He's gone, Jovan," said the woman beside the bed. The man holding me down let me go after I stopped struggling. A dull throbbing took over my bandaged arms, and my heavy head pulled me down to the pillow.
"You couldn't save him, Jovan" said the man, his voice gruff. He looked out the window, his one eye covered with a patch. A heavy blizzard was thrashing against the wooden cabin we were in, a heavy, grey blizzard.
"Where am I?" I asked the woman. "Who are you? Who is Michael?"
The woman shook her head, red curls bouncing from side to side. Her golden eyes were glossy as they regarded as one would a puppy with a broken leg.
"All those memories," said the man. "And nothing came of it."
"Where is your sensitivity, Myran?" asked the woman, frowning.
"Would someone please give me answers?"
Myran sighed. "You gave up all of your memories to save your child. It didn't work."
"My memories?"
"Yes," said the woman. "I'm Lysa. You're Jovan. And you tried to save your son, Michael, from the Crusaders."
I felt my stomach drop. I didn't know what they were talking about. But I knew they weren't lying when they said Michael was my son. I felt drawn to his name. The mere mention of him tugged on mind, but trying to remember him was like scratching a phantom limb.
"How did he die?" I asked, swallowing a lump.
"The Crusaders shot him down near the Bloody Cauldron," said Myran. "I told him i wasn't safe there. I told him, Lysa! And I told you, Jovan!"
Myran leaned towards me, his fists clenched tight, and face twisted in a scowl.
"Hey!" Lysa shouted. "You don't get to say that. You didn't give up all your memories to save him!"
Myran turned to the window. "It's only a matter of time before they come for us."
"Who are the Crusaders?"
"They are the King's watch-dogs," Lysa said. "When the world found out we could cast spells by giving up memories, King Alynn ordered a witch-hunt. Michael was our strongest caster."
"And now's he gone," I said. No matter how much they told me, it was like I was trying to put back a picture ripped to a thousand pieces. And Michael was the only piece I could understand.
Thunder crashed in the distance. And then again, but closer. The door to the cabin erupted, and a giant man in steel armor stepped through. He held a large hammer with both hands and swung for Lysa.
Lysa cried out a word before the hammer crushed her skull. In a flash of light, Myran and I were lying in the snow, the bitter cold numbing me instantly.
"Bastards," shouted Myran, pulling me up. My legs were too weak and I fell back on the snow. More men in steel rushed for us, this time holding small cannons on their shoulders.
Green burst from the cannons, rushing through the blizzard easily, but Myran deflected them with only a few words.
"You may kill me," said Myran. "But you won't kill me with my memories!"
Two more words he shouted, and burst into light. And light was I could see until the darkness took me.
I woke up with a cry, my arms were ripped from my body and my red blood pooled over the grey snow. The blizzard had stopped, revealing a dark blue sky. The world was silent save for the sound of metal falling on the snow.
As my vision faded and pain took over my consciousness, I could see the face of a blond boy with dark red eyes smiling at me.
"Michael."
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
If you like this story, you should subscribe to [r/JasonHolloway](https://www.reddit.com/r/JasonHolloway/) for more! | 2017-01-02T18:27:12 | 2017-01-02T16:28:46 | 43 | 10 |
[WP] Every starfaring species has discovered a different form of FTL travel. Kantian gates, Salec skip drives, Maltiun wave-riders, Delfanit pulse tubes ... Humanity's solution was regarded as "Unorthodox", "Unsafe", and "Damn Stupid" by the rest of the galaxy. | "So, about the humans..." Said a voice with diplomatic neutrality.
Groans from a myriad of different species' voices could be heard throughout the conference hall. There was a meeting being held on how to properly welcome these new, strange creatures now that they had, technically, at least, achieved Faster Than Light travel.
"We organised this meeting to discuss them! When are you all going to stop pussyfooting around the issue!?" The same voice declared, with a level of anger hard to believe considering their tone mere seconds ago.
"Blarpart, I know you're a workaholic and all that but have you SEEN these...creature's form of FTL "travel"?" A gruff voice from somewhere in the hall responded over the din of arguing and groans of "are we really fucking doing this?"
"I agree that it's...unconventional but-"
The word "unconventional" being used to describe human beings' method of intergalactic travel caused an uproar among the crowd.
"Hey! HEY! HEYYYYYY!" Interjected Blarpart with an odd mixture of rage, impatience and exhaustion. "It works for them, who are we to judge?"
"Don't you get it? They use possibly the most unstable thing in the universe, a wormhole, and pump it with a load of who knows what to make it last more than a nanosecond and to a greater size than a few atoms and just *sigh* go through it and hope for the best"
"As I said, uncon-" Blarpart thought better of using *that* word again and instead chose to deflect the conversation in the hopes of finishing and grabbing something from a Space Denny's on the way home.
"Ok, how about we just ignore them? They're not going to last long as a species if THAT'S how they traverse space. From our observations, their 'wormhole jumping' has about an 80% chance of failure. All in favour?"
A chorus of relieved "aye"s reverberated throughout the room.
"All opposed?"
...
"Well then, that settles i-"
"YOU FUCKING WOT, M8?" A voice shouted from just outside the hall.
"Can I go without being interrupted for ONE MINUTE?" Blarpart said in an exasperated sigh.
And with that, a duo of humans, one tall with brown hair and the other short with black hair, burst into the hall with their bottles of what they call "Mountain Dew" and bags of "Doritos" and started going on about how we can't "diss" them like that.
"You know what? Fuck these alien squares, wanna go piss into a black hole?" The taller one said.
"Yeah, dude. Definitely." The shorter one replied with an almost endearing level of excitement at the prospect.
And with that, the duo left as quickly as they had entered.
"What just happened?" A member of the crowd ask with a disbelieving tone.
"...Humanity. Humanity happened" said Blarpart, with yet another sigh.
Spelling and removing the pretentious "fin". | The Octo generational-carrier-ship hung over the blasted world. The only readings were the residual effects of the heavy radiation from the countless fusion bombs dropped on it.
A youngling pondered aloud "Why would we destroy a sentient species?"
"They broke the galaxy, youngling."
"How?"
The commander-elect thought to chastise the youngling, but the thought was fleeting. No disrespect (which must be upheld for the group as a whole) was detected. The commanders ship was one of the heaviest damaged, and breeding has been going full tilt ever since.
"Youngling" , it made the squishy alien equivalent of a sigh, "Let me tell you of the name that named us ‘Octos’, a race that must name everything."
"A species-that-names made it this far technologically?"
"Yes, driven by a fear of the unknown, they managed to form a rudimentary science and built their own FTL."
"Aren’t those usually insanely dangerous and only a purview of non-corporeals?"
The commander-elect paused, and allowed the younglings who had gathered to look upon the dead irradiated world.
"They thought they had built a telescope that could use subatomic particles to see systems at a different rate than the speed of light. They named all of these particles of course."
"How could they maintain so many names?"
"They couldn’t, with each new discovery changing names and making the system more and more convoluted."
After another introspective pause, “This species created this machine,” and it called up an imagine in 4D. It twisted and reformed, and looked like a churning bucket of broken mirrors.
“This machine had found the signal of an ancient artifact. We have ships heading there now…”
“This artifacts signal can be detected in every system, its signal is identical non-chronologically; Every known system hears an identical signal no what where they are in relation to the artifact.”
“We know about the artifact. Everyone does. So how could their detector-”
“They didn’t build a detector. They didn’t even build a *receiver*” a collective gasp visibly echoed in the viscous atmosphere.
The younglings quivered all 7 tentacles awaiting the next words.
“The creatures whom called themselves ‘People’ in 100’s of different words, these creatures built a transmitter.”
“And without a second thought, these creatures activated it.”
“So you see now, we had to end the possibly of transmission, before the old ones could reply.”
| 2017-03-31T10:44:01 | 2017-03-31T06:56:53 | 31 | 14 |
[WP] Two people in a bar are having a conversation. The topic of their "body counts" comes up. One's an assassin, the other is an escort. Each thinks the other has the same profession as them, and is horrified by what they are told. | “What’s your preferred point of entry?”
“I don’t really have a preference, there are only three options, after all. It depends on the client.”
“Only three? It doesn’t get boring sticking to the same monotony? Don’t you ever want to spice things up a bit?”
“Well I did try the ear once, but it wasn’t a particularly pleasant experience for either me or the client.”
“I can see that, but I don’t know why you place so much emphasis on the client, it's just a job, after all.”
“It has everything to do with the client. How am I to be hired again should I not perform my job to satisfaction?”
“Sometimes it's just dirty, but I don’t need to tell you that.”
“Now I’ll drink to that. You said you felt there were more options, do tell.”
“Do you want a whole list? I mean, agreed, the throat is always reliable, but the torso is also an effective finisher.”
“Finisher? How long do your encounters typically last?”
“Oh, not long at all. If I do my job right, a few seconds. You?”
“That’s terrible low stamina, I may have had a client finish in a few seconds one, but I’ve done hours before.”
“Hours? Dear God! With only three entry points? How much do you make them suffer?”
“Oh, only if they’re into that sort of thing. I have had to work on my whip skills recently, I have a regular who really loves lashings.”
“Oh, what an interesting weapon of choice. And regular? What is this cat and mouse bullshit? A job is a job, get paid and move on with your life. We have to face regular society in the morning.”
“Oh, I don’t often see my clients outside of my work, if that’s what you mean. Yes, my face does become more recognized if I’ve seen them on more than one occasion, but few ever believe them.”
“You’re that confident? You don’t even wear a mask? It sounds like this is your life, not just a job.”
“It’s by necessity, same as you. So you’ve never encountered a client more than once?”
“I never miss.”
“I suppose that should be ample reason for them to come back.”
“By clients, do you mean the targets or the one paying you?”
“They are often two different people? I’ve only had that a few times, for bachelor parties and whatnot.”
“You do your work in a public area? Good lord, no mask, multiple encounters, you better be careful. And how could they be the same? People are placing targets on their own backs? Well, I guess if it is more of a cat and mouse situation I suppose they get their money’s worth. Probably some bored rich fools who want to see if they still got moves.”
“Oh tell me about it. They always think they’re so high and mighty and then they’re out in minutes. They pay well though, can’t complain.”
“The pay’s the only reason I’m in this job.”
“Of course, we lead this life from circumstance. You said it was an unusual weapon of choice, but I find the whip used quite commonly, what do you use?”
“Knives, handguns, rifles, anything that leaves a mark.”
“Rifles?! Oh lord… they aren’t actually loaded are they? Just those bayonet things I assume? Are these those same rich people who do this… cat and mouse roleplay you’ve mentioned a few times?”
“Roleplay? What fucked up shit are you involved with? As I said, I do the job, and then moved on. I don’t dress up and I only play one part. And of course, the rifles are loaded, I don’t just use knives, bullets get the job done much faster.”
“Hey! Roleplay is quite common, don’t kink shame! What the hell do you mean they’re loaded? You said I was involved in some fucked up shit, but yours is the fuckiest, and I don’t mean that as a compliment. I thought we were getting along there for a bit, but it appears our worlds, even as similar as they seem, are much too different.”
“Kink shame… what in the world… I knew they were some sadist freak. Hours killing a victim, what the hell kind of twisted mind do you have to have to pull something like that off.” |
I am under 18, so I misunderstood what you meant by "escort", so uh, sorry about that
💀
‐------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gabriel sat in one of the tables in one of the many busy bars of Paris. Outside, by the window, he could see the great Eiffel Tower looming above.
Although the warm rays of the sun and the cheerful dancing of the daffodils told him it was going to be a happy day, Gabriel's plan was otherwise. He was here to meet an assassin, just like himself. Together, they would plan to kill one of the politicians in the French government.
He was waiting for an assassin by the name of Marcos Esposito, a 36 year old assassin from Italy. He would be wearing a black leather jacket and deep black sunglasses to cover his eyes. Marcos and Gabriel both worked for the same organization, The Snake Grave, which paid them each time they successfully killed their target.
Gabriel sat back and watched the innocent kids walk around and play and enjoy their lives. The politician was once one of them, but even still, a duty is a duty.
\*\*\*
Markos Toussaint wore his black leather jacket and deep black sunglasses which completely covered his eyes. He was about to meet his boss today at this bar in Paris. He was a private escorter, and in a few short weeks, it was his job to escort this French politician safely to a building. He opened the glass door and walked in. He walked past the tables for a while until somebody called out to him.
"PSST! Marcos, over here". I turned around. It was a man dressed in a tuxedo, and he was pointing to the seat opposite to him. I sat down.
"So," the man began. "How do you plan to do the job?"
Markos was a bit confused as first, but he realized his boss must be asking him where he would escort the politician and how he was trained to protect him.
"Well", Markos spoke. "The politician is going to be dropped off at the parliament building down the street. After that, we will have security monitoring the area for any potential dangers. After we have done our job with the security, I will do my job with the politician.
Gabriel nodded his head. The man sounded pretty experienced to him. The way he just dismissed the "dealing with security" part so casually means he must be good at his job.
"That is a great plan. Say, you seem to be good at what you are doing. How long did it take you to get here?"
"Eh, a lot of training and skill. I had to practice taking bullets in my body to do my job properly." Markos remembers his training years. They would shoot him with bullets and he would have to take them in order to protect the president. Of course, they shot at the non-vital parts, but he still remembers the vivid pain and the blood coming out of the wounds.
Gabriel nodded. "Yeah, you seem very experienced. I bet you have a high body count."
Markos was a bit skeptical with the "body count", but he responded with: "yeah, I have escorted many people before."
That sentence caught Gabriel's attention. "Escort?". Markos seemed confused too.
"Yeah, didn't you hire me to escort that French politician?"
"No. I thought you were the assassin, Marcos Esposito". Suddenly, Markos understood why the conversation was so weird.
Gabriel pulled something out of his side. It was a pistol, staring dead straight at Markos's eyes. "Well friend, looks like I have said too much. It was nice meeting you though." But before he could pull the trigger, he was thrown back at his seat, and blood splattered all over it. The people in the bar yelled and screamed in fear, and started frantically running out of the bar.
Markos looked to the side. It was a man dressed almost exactly like him, holding a Desert Eagle pistol in his hand. On the front of his jacket, at the top left, typed in small print, was the word "CIA".
"Hi, this is Marcos Esposito. I'll explain everything in the car." He had a thick Italian accent.
As Marcos and Markos both walked out of the bar, Markos was trying to process what had happened in the last 10 minutes. | 2022-04-25T23:38:12 | 2022-04-25T22:25:06 | 2,148 | 41 |
[WP] You stole 10$ from some guys bank and now he's coming after you with everything he's got. | It was just $10.00 and after all, I was hungry. Who would even notice? Who would even care? Turns out I had found the one guy who pored over every facet of his finances and like a dog with a bone, just wouldn't let this go. This was ridiculous.
 
A little over a week had passed since I had found his debit card, with his PIN number so idiotically scribbled on the back, just lying there numbers up in the grass by the sidewalk. I never expected it would work. I walked over to the ATM a block up the road and inserted the card, and typed in the PIN. I checked the account balance. $86,400.00 exactly. This guy was rolling in it. There's no way he would miss just $10.00 so I made my withdrawal, and then stuck the card in the envelope deposit slot as a little good deed.
 
Fast forward to today. I have shut down my Facebook account, Twitter and Instagram too. This guy just kept coming. He had used a bunch of his remaining $86,390.00 on private detectives to run my fingerprints from his card, and video from the ATM. Now he was trying to use my social media accounts to track me down. I'm terrified of what will happen if he actually catches me. Will he kill me? This guy's clearly insane.
 
I see a shadow moving up the sidewalk towards where I am sitting on a bench using a restaurant WiFi. The shape is clearly avoiding stepping into the intermittent pools of light. I can't run anymore. It's just one guy, I can take him.
He approaches, "Did you take $10.00 out of my account?" he asked menacingly. "Yes, I did. I was hungry, and I felt like it was a reasonable reward for returning your carelessly lost debit card.", I replied. "Oh. I hadn't thought about it that way. I suppose you're right. I really wish I hadn't spent the rest of my $86,390 trying to get revenge." Then his head and shoulders drooped slightly, and with an air of defeat, he turned around and left. | *How did I get here?*
I asked myself that question as I sat on the street corner, rattling the coins in the tin can. I was wearing rags, whatever I could scrounge out of the dumpster, basically.
I guess it all started when my business was starting to take off. A buddy from college and I had had a fantastic idea that was going to revolutionize the clothing industry. It was so good, I took out a loan for 200,000 dollars to get the company started.
At first, everything came together like magic. I used about 170,000 to get the business off the ground, when everything fell apart. Apparently the bank gave us 2 MILLION dollars instead of 200,000. My back stabbing, scab eating, dirt sniffing scumbag of a partner **took** the remaining 1,800,000 dollars and ran. The interest payments alone cut way past all the profits that my brand new company was making.
I divorced my wife, so I wouldn't drag her down with me, and cut out everyone close to me so they wouldn't have to witness my shame.
I sat on the street corner, begging for change to be able to buy a meal.
What's this?
Some saint of a person just gave me ten dollars!
***************************
Parodied off of [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/6o18uh/wp_you_have_86400_in_your_bank_and_someone_steals/dkdx2nr/)
/r/shucklescribbles
critique welcome | 2017-07-18T23:46:02 | 2017-07-18T22:23:10 | 2,949 | 603 |
[WP] Ever since a horrific traffic accident years ago you have had a reoccurring song going around in your head. Although heavily researched, this song doesn't exist and there is no reference to it at all. Your at a bar, washing your hands in the toilets when a man walks in faintly singing a tune. | ######[](#dropcap)
It's been there since five years ago. Every so often, I can hear it a little more loudly, as if it's gotten closer somehow, and then it disappears again. Like that short pause on the radio in between songs, when they're switching the track out. Only it's the same song, over and over and over again.
I've tried getting help before. The psychiatrist said something about PTSD. About how sometimes you see echoes of the terrible things that have happened to you, and sometimes they stay.
"I don't think I'm traumatized by my boyfriend's death," I tell him. "I didn't particularly like him."
The psychiatrist looks at me and frowns. He writes something down in his little notebook. "Interesting," he says.
I stare at the knick on the back of my hand and remember that safety is a word I can associate with home now.
"You should go out more," my friends tell me. "It's been five years since your boyfriend died. You have to move on." I always feel like I should tell them I moved on six years ago, but I always shut my mouth. Some things are better left unsaid. Unimagined. Some things can only hurt if you bring them back into the light.
It was on a Saturday when it happens. When I finally decide that I can't stay at home on Fridays anymore and live my whole life in fear of men. So I go out to the Glacier with just a couple of friends. The ones who know.
But the closer I get, the louder the song gets. As if it had been waiting for me the entire time, just waiting for this moment where it could lure me in like a fish on a hook. I fall for it, following the song around the floor, dancing around the edges, when it disappears into the men's room.
Without a moment of hesitation, I open the door to face a man inside who I've never seen before. Who are you? he asks me. His eyes are a light blue, almost white, and they remind me of glaciers. I have to admit, he's a handsome man.
"That song," I ask. "What is it? You were singing it."
He looks surprised for a split second before he splits into a grin. "You can hear it?" he asks.
"Yes," I say.
"You want to know why?"
He walks slowly toward me, and it's now that I notice he's dressed in a suit and tie. That's strange, I think. "Yes," I say out loud.
He caresses my cheek, and I lean into his fragrance. It smells like jasmine, like roses, like heaven.
"After people have been in an accident, they become...sensitive," he says. "Their range of hearing increases." He draws me closer, into his embrace, and all I can feel is the warmth of his arms around me, the heat of his hands splayed against the small of my back. "I like to sing in that particular range because,"--he breathes in deeply, and I wonder if he's taking in my scent--"there's something so supple about someone whose broken."
In the back of my mind, I know I should be afraid. I know something's wrong. But my hands draw him closer, bringing his lips down to mine. He's a drug I never knew existed. And one I could never give up. His lips are as cold as ice, but as soft as snow.
"So what's that song?" I ask again.
He leans back slightly, and it's at that moment I realize I should run. But my feet are glued to the ground, and my hands are stuck to his chest. Something is keeping me here. He blinks, and his pupils turn into slits, like a cat's eyes. He grins, and his canines are sharp. Much too sharp for a human.
"It's a siren song."
*****
r/AlannaWu | Amidst the cheering of my friends, I took a deep breath and blew out the four candles on the cake, the words "To cheating death!" scrawled across it in thick frosting.
"YEAH!" the whooping and back claps rocked me as hard as the accident had.
I looked over and saw Marley ordering more drinks while drunkenly stumbling through the tale of our celebration.
"Four yeahs.. Years! Four years ago! Four years ago I met the luckseiests son of a bitch in the world! He was cut in half! IN HALF!" He pointed back at me and I gave a broad smile at those closest to him who turned and looked with incredulous curiousity in the direction that he pointed.
"Hey Mark, I'm gonna go piss while he pays for those. Tell him not to eat my cake before I get back!"
"You got it bud" Mark grins at me and goes back to listening to Becky talk about her most recent ER patient.
"No! No! I'm not bulbulllshitting! He was in half! The pole had folded on the car and"
The swish of the door to the bathroom cut off the rest of his story as the sounds of the bar diminished to a dull buzz of music and muffled voices.
I didn't need to hear it again- I could remember it like it had just happened. If that blasted humming would stop, perhaps I could forget, but it never stopped. Still, it was nice to celebrate life and the second chance I had been given. It was a miracle operation, and every year my friends from before, the doctors who worked on me, and crazy fucken Marley who had stumbled across the wreckage liked to get together and have a little party. It was a big moment that had changed all our lives and I wasn't going to rain on the parade because of some insanely obscure ditty.
I wobbled a little as I unzipped and put a hand up on the cool tile of the wall to steady myself.
"Shit… too much beer." I muttered under my breath.
"Yes" said a voice from one of the stalls.
I furrowed my brow and was halfway through thinking how weird it was to reply to another guy in the bathroom when I heard it. That tune. The same one I had tried countless failing ways to drown out since the accident. Coming from the same stall and matching exactly the timing and inflection.
Without thinking I spun where I was to see who would come out- I needed to know what that was!- and then I realized I hadn't finished urinating when I spun.
"Damnit" I cursed as I looked down at the urine on the floor and my pant let. Ahen I looked back up I saw him emerging from the stall, covered head to toe in long black robes.
"Shit!" I cursed again as my foot slipped on the urine and flew from under me, a sudden pain exploding in the back of my head as I hit it against the urinal and then the floor.
"You can't cheat death forever." the figure said as the black swelled and overtook my entire frame of vision and finally, peacefully, the humming faded.
​
\-----------------
Edited for a few details | 2018-08-29T17:51:56 | 2018-08-29T17:28:46 | 125 | 57 |
[WP] As you die, you wake up in a fiery place. You quickly realize you're in hell. You ask the next demon why you are there, as you lived a very good life. "You're not being punished," he says. "You are the punishment." | "you're the punishment" he says.
"I don't understand, I don't want to torture anyone, that's just not me".
The demon laughed. "Oh don't you worry about that, you just live you're every day life, but with a bit more fire. We won't make you do a single thing you wouldn't have done while you were alive, and since you're already dead, there are no more restrictions on clothing or food. Wear what you like, eat what you like, do what you like, just make sure you follow your old routine, got it?"
"I... I think I understand, but I don't see how *I* could be torture. I'm a good enough guy". I say back, unsure of whether to be offended or complimented here.
"Head out the door and follow your gut to your house. You've got about 2 hours of free time before you're first session. You'll know where to go after that." The demon smiled, shaking my hand "it will.be a pleasure to work with you, we really do love you people down here, true geniuses, beyond your time."
I took his hand, frowning. This was not at all how I imagined the afterlife, but I suppose I am no longer to be tortured, and after following strict moral guidelines while alive, I am *technically* now allowed all of the things promised to me. I lived by the book, now I'll spend eternity beyond it, I suppose.
I pick up my briefcase and walk down the street. The houses are very nice in hell, funnily enough. They all seem too big, and a strange tugging in my core lead me to my own. It was, for lack of a better term, my dream home. Not too big, not too flashy. It was a nice, respectable suburban home with a nice, respectable lawn. Nicely trimmed and duly maintained. Checking the mailbox I had a welcome from the Hell Owner's Association, signed by Satan himself.
Unlike HOA up top, basically it was just a survey to fill out to ensure my house, and apparently my entire neighborhood, were laid out and set up to my liking. Apparently this cul-de-sac was my "territory", and if I "performed exceptionally" I could be expanded, up to the rank of demon Lord, with my name being released to the mortals above, possession rights, and my own church-lore. The works.
"This is all so strange" my head was spinning. I walked inside, it was prim and proper. All of my preferred decorations were on the wall, which was to say, very few. A cross here, a family photograph there. Every room was set up exactly the way I would have done it, the house itself seemed to be my perfect layout too, each room exactly where it should be. There was no television, but I quickly found that my book shelf, with a little nudge, could cycle through infinite books. I smiled at that, there were several "forbiddon" books that I would like to read, now that I am able.
A lovely grandfather clock chimed.
"Oh goodness! I should get to work!" I straightened up my slacks and shirt, and picked up my briefcase. It was a short walk to my first... Client? I'm not sure what to call them.
I knocked on the door. Loud music could be heard inside, through the windows the room was painted black. The man who opened the door was... Interesting. He was deathly pale, with long black spikes of a mohawk, thick makeup around the eyes, and covered with piercings. His shirt had the print of some metal band, and I could smell overwhelming marijuana stench from his house. Vaguely satanic symbols covered his body in the form of tattoos.
"What" he asked, bluntly.
"Do you have a moment to talk about our Lord and savior Jesus Christ?" I asked in my most pleasant voice.
"Yes" he said flatly, then froze, contemplating what he said.
"Yes" he tried again. It was obvious this wasn't what he intended to say, as his lips formed a different word entirely.
"Yes I would, please come in and have a seat" he said out loud, his lips forming much more vulgar terms as he began to panic.
He began to be pulled backwards, as if by some unseen force to a black chair that rotated to receive him.
"I've got some literature for you, as well. You can read it and we can discuss. Let's begin" I said, walking inside to take the seat across from the panicked man.
I smiled. Ah yes, so this is what the demon meant. I would get to spend eternity doing exactly what I love, maybe this was heaven after all. | It was a living room. It was on fire but it was most definitely a living room. I had seen living rooms before so that was a sure thing, but how I got here I wasn't sure. Pete and Eduardo were arguing on the hot line and Don was hitting on the new waitress.
It was hot in here but it wasn't actually that bad. It wasn't a summer Saturday broiler station hot but you knew the heat was on. Speaking of here.... how did I get here?
The new waitress, Dana, Edna? Something. Wasn't her boyfriend at the bar? Except he caught Don grabbing a feel on his lady. Yes, that escalated quickly.
I remember him grabbing a boning knife and then I tried to stop him and then.... blood, so much blood, fading screams, and now this living room. On fire. Alone. With a pretty nice couch.
The fire appears to barely bother me. Weird but I won't look this gift horse in the mouth. The living room is decorated with lots of leather and gilding with flame and fire being the general theme. The leather furniture is soft and pink. And as the thing missing from this living room is a door or windows I pick asv easy chair and settle in. A drawer on the side table slides open and a selection of fine cigars, blunts and buds reveals itself. A remote refuses to fall in the seat cushion and presents itself.
"What the fuck? " I finally have something to say but don't really know where to go from there. I notice an ice cream service in the corner. On fire.
I love ice cream. Even on fire. It was cinnamon tasting and blood red and the best ice cream I have ever eaten. The whipped cream. The whipped cream.... I was in heaven. But it was on fire.
"What the fuck?" I asked again.
" I heard you the first time," the demon on the stairs said " I was just waiting for you to finish your ice cream so I could offer you a cocktail. "
"WHAT THE FUCK!?" I screamed. There were no doors but I missed a stairwell?
"How do you make a what the fuck? I thought we knew all the drinks down here, we have every printing of Old Mr. Boston's recipe book in satan's library and I'm sure it's nowhere to be found in there. Here. Take this." The demon hands me a Mai Tai. Nice ripe pineapple and a little leather umbrella, classy.
The phrase satan's library brings my attention back after a sip of, wait... three sips of the best cocktail I've ever had. "What do you mean satan's library exactly? Because this sure feels like heaven except for all the fire and you. "
"Union rules dictate that the operations of hell are too mundane for demons and too important for the devious damned so that leaves the blessed. You lived a kind life and sacrificed for others even until the end. This is your reward. "
"Wut?"
"Your reward," the demon repeated. "All you wish is here, the big wall is operated by the unloseable remote. It can open a door to anywhere. You can ask for anything. It will be brought. All we need is one thing from you."
Here was the catch. "What, my soul? My first born? "
"First born? You're dead. You were a cook for twenty years. You have no first born. It's the heat. We need you to check the thermostat. Once a day for a year."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
"Why me? "
The demon laughed. He laughed for a while. "Because it is already hot as hell in the kitchens so we always ask for a cook. You guys actually turn the thermostat up."
Come to think of it. I was feeling a little chilly. | 2020-07-10T12:13:09 | 2020-07-10T11:14:50 | 16 | 11 |
[WP] You die and go to Hell only to find out that you're the only person that has ever entered. Satan is clapping. | A bang, a flash. Yes, I remember that clearly in mind. Surprisingly there was no pain. I suppose my body was already numb from the shock of coming home to find this man, no boy, in my house. It’s all really just a blur. I had only just spotted him when I opened the door. He was halfway down the stairs with my wife’s jewellery box in one hand and the gun in the other pointing directly at me. The shot followed quickly after. I didn’t even get a chance to tell him I didn’t care, that he could take it or even that I could help him. With the support of the church we had helped many people in the community just like him.
The shot had sent me hard to the ground, banging my head off the wall on the way down. My instincts took over and I just grabbed Rose. Attempting to put myself between her and my attacker. He didn’t even look at us as he stepped over me and strode out the door. I clenched my hand full of Rose’s dress and pulled her close. Blood was now everywhere, my shirt, the carpet and her dress. She had only got it last week for her birthday. The massive grin glowed from her all day. There was no sign of it now. My poor innocent girl, eyes wide just stared at me. A stream of tears flowed down her cheeks. “I love you Rose. You and your mother are the greatest things to ever happen to me. Don’t lose faith. I will be with god soon.”
Ha, god. Where was he now? I stood now in an extravagate hall. Six marble columns etched with carvings of runes and symbols flanked both my sides. A large fire was blazing in the western walls fire pit; however I don’t suspect that what was cause of the humid heat that pressured my skin from every angle. And there he was, sat on the throne just staring at me with those deep, dark red eyes.
“Well, after all these years” his voice boomed out, echoing of the cold stone walls. “You are the first human”, he really emphasised the word *human* “to ever step into my….”
“**What?!** The first human?” I interrupted. The rage flooded over me like nothing I had ever felt before. I unclenched my right hand and pointed straight at him. “I know who you are, Satan. But how can I be the first human to ever be sent to hell. Me a worshipper of god, who had helped so many people on to the path god had carved out for us, who had been the man in the house since his father abandoned before he was born, who was a loving husband and caring father. HOW CAN I BE THE FIRST!” I had never felt such anger. I could feel my eyes peeled wide open but my vision had now narrowed with one thing in focus, him. The heat that had made breathing hard was now gone.
His mouth widened into a massive grin baring his white, razor teeth at me. “Ah, yes. You have lived your whole life of righteousness and kindness. Been a loving husband and father you always wanted. Your mother, what did she ever tell you of your father?”
I stumbled on the question. Why would he care about him? He who should be here, not me. “She never spoke of him. Whenever I would ask she would try to pass it off and tell me he was….” No. It can’t be.
His smile widened even further. “the Devil?”
Edit: Just wanted to add any feedback is much welcomed since this was my first input to Writing Prompts | Darkness. They say there is a light at the end of the tunnel, but I see none. Wait. Is that... applause?
"What's going on?" I turn wildly, looking for the source of the sound.
"Oh, right," a raspy voice says. *Click.* A lamp is turned on, illuminating a small table and an armchair, in which sat a short man in a devil costume. "Hi."
"What's with the costume?" I ask, looking around. I seem to be in a library, or someone's living room. "I thought I was dead."
"Jeremy. You are dead. It's not a costume." The man in the devil costume shakes his head at me.
"Um, no. It is a costume, because the devil isn't real," I say. "How did you revive me? I thought I was dead.
"You are dead, you idiot." He lifts his pitchfork. "I'm the devil, you dummy."
"Well, that can't be true, because if it was, God would be real too." I'm the one shaking my head now.
"Oh, Jeremy. God is real, just as real as you or I."
I feel smugly superior to the man as I correct him. "There is no evidence that God is real, no evidence that he created the earth. There is no way of knowing the Bible is true."
"Yes, nobody *knows* it's true, but literally everyone else asked for his forgiveness on their deathbeds just in case." He rises from the armchair, leaving glowing embers. "Come on, you fool. I'll show you Hell."
I follow him numbly. "Everyone?" I ask. "Everyone asked forgiveness?"
"Yup. Every tribe in every country, every sailor, every scientist, every soldier. Nobody is exempt from God's grace." We step into a long hallway.
"But - even the Nazis? But not me?" The floorboards creak under my feet, and I notice the devil's hooves.
"Historically, much worse things have been done. But yes, everyone. Even you, but you chose not to accept it." He steps into an office. "Which brings us to this."
The devil, who is shorter than I had imagined, opened a drawer in what was probably the world's largest filing cabinet. "Here's your file. Every sin you've ever committed." He passed a thick file to me, the only one in the cabinet.
"Ahh, where do I start? The beginning?" I open the file, to see full pages of the smallest print readable.
"Skip to the end, I love that bit," he says eagerly.
I flip to the end. Only two lines, all capitals. The first reads IDIOT, the second, WISEASS.
"It's the summary of your life, as written by God. Sometimes Gabriel writes it, but you, Jeremy, are a special case." He whirls around. "But you should see the fire and brimstone I've made - special for this occasion!" | 2017-06-22T04:50:26 | 2017-06-22T04:29:40 | 732 | 34 |
[WP] Write two small stories with the exact same words in the same order, but with punctuation giving them completely different meanings.
[deleted] | I killed someone. A man. Followed him home before I did it. I didn't even know him. A stranger, that's all. I thought I'd leave him bleeding if I didn't. "Help me." I was too kind for my own good. I watched the light go from his eyes, smiling. He asked me to end it. I obliged. I thought, "He was strange at first but now he seemed just. Like me." I figured if the same thing happened to me I would ask for the same suffering. Never helped anybody, anyways. That's just. The right thing to do. Isnt it?
I killed someone. A man followed him home. Before I did it I didn't even know him. A stranger, that's all I thought. I'd leave him bleeding if I didn't help. Me? I was too kind for my own good. I watched the light go from his eyes. Smiling, he asked me to end it. I obliged. I thought he was strange at first but now he seemed just like me. I figured if the same thing happened to me I would ask for the same. Suffering never helped anybody, anyways. That's just the right thing to do isn't it? | My morning toast is ready, red and full of pockmarks. Mom lays on the couch. "When did it fall?" I wonder, looking at the old family picture face down on the floorboards. Dad wouldn't have liked all this mess. Time to do some house cleaning!
 
 
My morning toast is ready.
Red and full of pockmarks, mom lays on the couch.
"When did it fall"? I wonder.
Looking at the old family picture.
Face down, on the floorboards: Dad.
Wouldn't have liked all this mess.
Time to do some house cleaning. | 2015-09-23T10:02:07 | 2015-09-23T08:50:09 | 161 | 31 |
[WP] A person awakes from a coma to find the world has become a Utopia. They've read enough literature to believe there must be something wrong with it. There isn't. | Her long brown hair cascaded down her back in thick waves, bouncing as she walked down the sidewalk in a flowery silk dress. Never in my life had I seen someone so beautiful; the second I saw her, I knew I needed to know her. Without thinking, I stepped into the street. A car honked and my head jerked to the left, seeing a car swerve around me. I quickly jumped back onto the sidewalk.
That moment allowed me to really think about what I was about to do. Whoever this woman was, she would never want to meet someone like me. I lived on the streets, I begged for money. I’d be lucky if she so much as tossed a quarter my way.
Instead, I waited. Every morning at 7:30am, I watched her walk down the street. I wondered at what her life might be like: is she a scientist? An artist? A doctor?
And every day I made a change. Some were small—get a shower, shave my beard. Some days I made bigger changes, like landing a job as a UPS driver. If I was to approach the most beautiful woman in the world, I needed to be worthy of her time.
A little over a year after I saw her for the first time, I decided it was time to see her. I’d just secured an apartment and put down a deposit, and with that final goal reached I felt comfortable enough to speak to her. Waiting for the light to change, I finally stepped across the street at 7:30am.
I walked up to her slowly as she waited to cross the adjacent street. “Excuse me, ma’am,” I said timidly, “My name’s Tim. Would you like to get coffee with me?”
She smiled. “Rita,” she shook my hand, “and sure. I get off work at 5.”
Whatever compelled her to say yes, I’ll never know. We had coffee. I made her laugh. We had dinner. And over time, we fell in love. I wasn’t this happy since before my tour in Afghanistan.
A year later we married. And a few months after that, she announced that she was pregnant. It wasn’t long before we got even better news: it was twins! I couldn’t imagine my life any better than with my wife Rita and my soon to be little girls.
One morning I woke up in our bed and felt a pang in my head. Like being hungover, but worse. For days it wouldn’t go away. Rita tried to convince me to go to the doctor—she was so worried about me. But I figured it was nothing, until Rita’s water broke and I lost consciousness.
When I came to, I found myself staring at a white ceiling. “Rita?” I called out.
“I’m Dr. Eaton,” said a voice softy to my left. “Do you know what day it is?”
I don’t answer. “Where is my wife?” I croak.
“Mr. Carmichael, you don’t have a wife.”
They tell me about the accident. They tell me that three years ago I crossed a street and a car hit me, and that I’ve been in a coma ever since. The past 3 years have seen marvels in medicine, space travel, prosperity and peace across nations. That I’m lucky to be alive in what is truly the Golden Age of civilization, a true utopia for all.
But I know the truth.
This isn’t utopia.
How can it possibly be without Rita? | "So... there's no underhanded tactics at play here?" I asked, amazed at what I'd just heard.
The doctor stared at me quizzically, bemused by my odd question. "Er... no Mr. Gordon. It's just as I said - the world is finally at peace. There are no wars, disputes, petty squabbles... nothing of the sort."
My face held an expression of absolute bewilderment. "What about racism, sexism, fascism... and all the other isms?" After all, there must be some form of hatred in the world.
This time, the doctor had a warm smile on his face. "It's just as I told you Mr. Gordon... no more petty squabbles."
*No more petty squabbles.*
Was that really possible? Had humanity evolved to such an extent in the past ten years that the perfect Utopia had finally been created? A bunch of doubts raced through my mind, but it was the simplest - and at the same time, the most complex - question that escaped my lips.
"*How?*"
The doctor took a deep breath. Clearly the answer to that question wasn't as straightforward as I'd hoped it'd be. "If I tried to explain everything it would take days. Let's just put it like this - humanity's flaws have been eradicated. Sustainable development is in full force, and our once dying planet is slowly recovering from their past transgressions."
I breathed a sigh of relief... before comprehending the meaning behind the doctor's words. I tried to get a word in, but the doctor continued with his explanation before I could speak my mind.
"The future is bright now, after a long time." A wry smile formed on the doctor's face as he continued talking. "Your people have been a thorn in the planet's side for far too long, and we were created for the sole purpose of removing these... *parasites* from the face of the earth."
I tried to move, but my muscles hadn't been used in over a decade and I fell to the floor. My body refused to obey me, and I stared in abject fear as the doctor walked slowly towards my limp self.
"And now, humanity has been completely wiped out." The doctor straightened its arm, and I looked on in horror as a sharp, thin blade extended from the android's wrist.
"Well... *almost* wiped out."
I gasped as the doctor shoved the blade into my chest. My hands clutched the bleeding wound as I gasped for breath - but the hole in my lungs wouldn't let me. The floor around me was colored in a rich shade of crimson as I breathed my last.
------
Hi! If you liked this story and want to read more tales like this, please consider subscribing to my new subreddit, r/Ritwik_Mitra!
EDIT: Altered a stupidly worded sentence. | 2017-03-17T12:08:51 | 2017-03-17T11:37:45 | 138 | 42 |
[WP] You've always been in combat with music, so people always assumed that's what gives you your powers, but today your enemy has managed to take away your headphones, without knowing that music didn't give you your powers, it just gives you control over them | The sounds of a deep bass, grating guitars, and rapid drums filled my ears as I smashed and ripped through the seemingly endless mob of robots.
“SO WHAT IF YOU CAN SEE
THE DARKEST SIDE OF ME
NOTHING COULD EVER TAME THIS ANIMAL THAT I HAVE BECOME”, my earbuds screamed into my ears as I roared and threw the bots into each other in a superhuman fury.
Mad-Mech had just raided an electronics shop and had created an army of aggressive and small robots that were blasting lasers and crawling around. As the mad genius laughed maniacally while pocketing electronics and emptying the registers, people were running from all the puppy-sized bots shooting lasers and slashing victims tendons with jagged metal edges.
I angrily roared and picked up a shelf, swinging and smashing random bots in a sweeping arc before I looked around wondering where the supervillain was.
“OI, SHITHEAD, OVER HERE!”, I heard the maniac yell before I turned my head to see...a speaker bot.
“NOW, NOW, I JUST WANNA TALK”, the bot said right before I smashed it.
In an instant, another bot was there to replace it, and it said, “You and I... we're alike in that we live in chaos...”
I smashed that one and yet another one came up to me.
“What I'm proposing is...Why don't you stop fighting me and work for me? I know your abilities are linked to music and who knows the power you can have with the types of music I can hack for you?”
I smashed the robot as I answered, “I don't sow chaos. I prevent it.”
“In that case, keep living that delusion.”
Another bot had crept behind me and said that before emitting an extremely sharp noise that left a ringing in my ears.
“Just know that, you're powerless without your headphones.”, the bot said before skittering away
My headphones were no longer working and my heart pounded.
Mad-Mech had been right that my abilities were linked to music, but it wasn't that I was powerless without it.
Instead, my abilities were only controlled by music and he had just unleashed something terrible by creating an environment of chaos.
As the sounds of screams, smashed objects, and skittering minibots filled my ears, I felt the room grow colder.
The lights started flickering as my mind went blank and the screams got louder with sounds of crushing metal and demonic voices in garbled tones in the background.
The ground cracked and tendrils of darkness ripped from within the walls, gripping and crushing everything. The screams faded as the tendrils crushed and shredded everything in their path.
The whole store became shredded and when everything was silenced, there was nothing but rubble, piles of electronics, blood, and metal scraps left behind.
A bit further away from the store, Mad Mech was crushed, half his cyborg body underneath a piece of a metal beam and his lifeless eyes with eyeballs ripped out.
You see, music wasn't the source of my powers.
Demons were.
I controlled them by summoning them using songs that matched their characteristics and while I had been possessed by an animal demon earlier, the screams had brought out all the other demons.
Now, everyone was dead.
He should have never done that.
After that, I picked up one set of earbuds from the ground, dropped from a store shelf, plugged it into my phone, and turned on a calming song as I sat there quietly waiting for the hero organization to come.
Hopefully, everything was going to be okay. | The Wave darted terrible close, but just missed the cord to my headphones. I launched fireball at him, narrowly missing. Thankfully I didn't throw hard enough for it to actually hit anything. Instead it dissipated before striking anything.
I just needed to get him away from that dumb lake in the middle of town. I didnt want to dry it all up, but with as many buildings as were close to flooding it may come to that.
The Wave started a whirlpool in the middle of the lake. Of course Adele's Set Fire to the Rain would play as the whirlpool started gathering all the water in the center of the lake and raising it up into a tidalwave.
A stream of fire shot out of my hands towards The Wave. He blocked the continuous stream with a large chunk of ice as he started approaching.
"What are you listening to anyways!" The Wave screamed. Just as he got close, he dropped the ice, reaching out towards me. He caught the cord with one finger, and fell back as he was burned terribly. My phone was pulled out of my pocket as the headphones were yanked off. A steady stream of fire that I'd shot The Wave with quadrupled in diameter instantly, and no longer disappeared about 20' in front of me. Instead, it continued for what seemed like forever. "You fucking idiot!" I screamed, terrified of what I was doing.
I wanted it to stop, but I didnt know how. I set miles of buildings on fire as I turned my hands towards me to look at them. I just wanted it to stop. Instead I set myself on fire. It didnt hurt but I complicated the situation.
I spun around in the air, looking for anything that could help. Any one. If dad was still here hed know how to fix this. Tears welled up in my eyes. I saw the lake down below. The Wave had lost control of the water as he focused more on being burned. I flew down to the lake struggling to keep the fire directed safely.
I dived into the lake, instantly boiling the water around me. I kept my hands in front of me and just kicked, diving deeper and deeper into the lake. My lungs started screaming for air, but the water around me was still boiling. Further below the surface I dived.
I never wanted to hurt anyone, but it was so hard to be the hero with a force as destructive as fire. And the music had been my only way of tempering the internal fire that burned on.
I'm not sure if it continued to get darker because of the depth or because of how badly I need ed d to breathe. I kept kicking until everything was pitch black. I kept kicking, going deeper until I couldn't hear the water bubbling around me. Until I couldn't feel it boiling. Until the water seemed cold and still. Until everything felt so calm and serene that I felt like I was one with the water. | 2018-08-29T11:32:58 | 2018-08-29T10:03:56 | 67 | 11 |
[WP] For his kindness, the dragon taught the squire the dragon song. A song that was sure to make whoever sang it irresistible to the ladies. In hindsight, the squire should have known that by ladies, the dragon meant lady dragons. | It had been many years since the fateful day that Morath had encountered the dragon. Looking back, he could barely remember the person he had been back then. Young and naive, just an ignorant farm boy who had a chance encounter that would change his life forever. A bumper crop and some luck at cards had allowed his father to pay a hedge knight to take him as a squire. War had drawn his new master to the mountains far to the east and it was there, far from his home, that he had met the beast.
Separated from his knight in battle, wounded and exhausted, fleeing from the enemy cavalry, he had sought refuge in the hills. Finding a cave, he had stumbled into it driven by fear, seeking only to live one more day. It was only after he collapsed to the floor, his energy spent, that he had seen the bones. The beast had returned before he could gather the will to flee, but just as he had been prepared to accept his fate, and finally give in to the stalking death that had been gnawing his heels since the battle began, the dragon had spoken. “**A human, in my home? Truly this has been a day of firsts. My first defeat in battle, and now the first time a meal has willingly offered itself to me. Indeed, your timing could not be better, as I am in dire need of replenishment**.”
Morath could see that the dragon, like him, was indeed sorely wounded. But he had little time to contemplate exploiting this potential weakness before the massive jaws snapped forward, and he was swallowed up. He had found the experience intensely frightening at first, but then he’d discovered himself floating in a dark, warm place. Small lights floated at the edge of his vision, and he once again heard the voice, muffled as if it came from a distance.
“**You have done me a kindness, and now I will do one for you in return. To repair my wounds and replenish my soul, an exchange must be made. I must take but I also must give. Therefore, since you were so kind as to offer your life to me, I will instead take your death. And in return I will give you..a song. Sing it when you desire the company of the finest ladies, and they will come to you. Now, the exchange is made, and our business is concluded. Farewell, human**.”
When he’d awakened, he’d been on the hillside outside the cave, wounds healed. He’d felt refreshed, full of vitality and vigor. And he knew a song. He’d walked down the mountain singing, and the sound had drawn the enemy patrols. But it had also drawn the fine ladies the dragon had spoken of. From the air they had come, winged and armored in shining scales. They had danced in the sky, more beautiful in his eyes than any debutant in a ballroom of some fancy castle.
His enemies had been focused on him, not seeing the silent ballet in the sky, not seeing the fine ladies who had come to dance. So it was with murder in their hearts that they had approached him, and it was not until the fire came down and they had burned, screaming, that they finally understood the song their intended victim was still singing.
Now, years later, the memory of that first song came to him as he watched his ladies pirouette above the burning city. Men had tried to kill him or break him, but the dragon had taken his death, and so he could not die. Women had tried to seduce him, to control him, but he had no need of their charms. He had his ladies. He had the dance.
He stood overlooking the scene of death and destruction below him, as the screams began to harmonize with the song that came from his throat, and from his heart, and from his very soul. Morath sang, and his fine ladies danced, and the world burned. | While faced with a wall of scales, you think back to the series of events that led to your current situation.
You had taken part in an expedition to loot and butcher a dragon and its lair, you were supposed to be one of the many pack mules while the hero and his team felled the beast.
It was a fascinating battle, the dragon used fangs, claws, and spells to fight back the invaders, dodging the bolts of magic used by the mage and the shield bash of the paladin. The entire human team struggled to exploit gaps in its defense to beat it.
But it was one against eight and soon the majestic being was down, covered in slashes and scorched skin, scales broken off and wings frozen. "Wait, let me check that thing." The mage pulled out a book from their storage pocket and began comparing the dragon with whatever was written.
"Bollocks! We wasted an expedition for nothing!" You wondered what it meant for the animal. "That's not a Golden Dragon! It's just a Sand Dragon, no different from wyverns besides having four legs." This particular specimen had grown in a zone with fine yellow sand, leading to the confusion. And this species's favored hoard was animal bones, which was equally useless after being ruined by its saliva.
The crew groaned in dismay, a quick survey revealed nothing else of value. When everybody turned to leave, you asked about the dragon. "Eh? Let it bleed out, one less monster to bother people." You felt troubled, as a hunter you were taught to respect life, to only kill an animal to gain subsistence from it's carcass. Leaving the beast to die would be a great waste.
You stayed behind, and nobody cared to fetch you. The dragon's eyes were fixated on you, wondering your next move. "Aw man, don't make that face!" It resembled the salamander you had nursed back to health when you were a kid who had no idea of the danger. "Geez, fine, I'll help you."
After treating its wounds, the dragon introduced himself as Marrow and thanked you. "Er, no problem. We did something wrong in attacking you first." You sat down and pulled a camping set, it was late to make your way back. **"What do you wish for? Perhaps I can aid you."**
You mulled over the offer. You didn't want for money, becoming a famous adventurer was more trouble than it was worth. "Hmm... The only thing missing is a girlfriend, I want to get married too..." The dragon snorted. **"You desire a mate?"** You looked up with doubt.
"You got something?" It nodded. **"A dragon song, passed down from my ancestors. It will enchant all the ladies. That's why there are so many of my kin."** Oh yeah, Sand Dragons were far too common, every continent had at least a small population.
"Teach me to sing it." **"Very well, here's for your future mate!"**
What you should have figured, was that it was a *dragon* song of courtship. You hummed it out while in a hunt for Crystal Elk. And now you had attracted the actual Gold Dragon.
**"Hello, handsome~"** | 2022-11-06T06:59:21 | 2022-11-06T05:03:28 | 843 | 398 |
[WP] "Wow, what a great batch we've got this time!" exclaimed the angel looking down at all the horrified cultists. "What, did you really expect that to summon a demon? Come on, we advertised it like that because you guys need us most!" | Graham smiled as he struggled to fit the key into the door, he had been gone for two months and even though he was home one month earlier he still chafed at how much time he had missed.
Dropping his luggage in the parlour he padded into the bedroom, he could imagine the surprise on her face, the way her cheek mole would touch her eye when she smiled. The bedroom door was open, light streaming into the passage. He spread his arms wide, stepped into the room, and stopped.
There, tangled in the Russian bedsheets he had brought on his last shift, was his Emily, curled up naked beside his best friend. A giant grabbed his heart and squeezed, a bead of sweat dropped into his eyes, he was so cold.
You don’t know that it’s what you’re thinking, you don’t know if they’re naked.
He could check, lift up the blanket and see, but he didn’t want to. Joel’s trousers and shirt, his favourite shirt were on the headboard. Seeing it with his own eyes wouldn’t help.
He stepped out and into the kitchen, by the time he came back they were stirring from sleep, he presented the tray. “Pancakes and maple syrup, would you prefer orange juice or tea?”
“G..” Joel began
“Shhh” he cautioned, index finger to his lips, he set the tray down and bowed. “You’ll need your strength, eat.”
He didn't move until they did, Joel first, cutting a piece of a pancake and putting it very slowly, in a comically dramatic way in his mouth. Did he think Graham couldn’t cook? Graham wondered.
No problem, he would soon be otherwise convinced.
Graham slipped out and grabbed the book, it was a little brown antique, he had first thought it a joke until he had tried it out, he had brought it home thinking it could help with Emily’s condition. No need to worry about that anymore.
When he was done, the floor of their bathroom looked like something out of a Hollywood Horror episode, the pentagram was smooth and the invocation had worked, there was a slight shimmer in the air and then a cloud of steam like a boiling lake, he bowed his head to the ground.
“Hail Lucifer.”
“Fear not Son of Man” a loud voice boomed like thunder, all the doors and windows in the house flew open “I am Raphael, servant of The Most High, Have you heard of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?”
“No… No” Graham panicked “The book said Lucifer.”
“Of course it did” the angel said, because it was obvious it was an angel now “We wrote it after all. Who better to evangelise than those desperate enough to invoke such a miserable creature.
Now, can I interest you in the Gospel of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ?” | The angel said his words and waited to see the look of horror on the cultist’s faces. He waited for what seemed like an eternity. The all stared, he supposed his appearance would be blinding to them, as he did shine brighter than any star, standing a few feet away from them. But it was the lack of shock he was dissatisfied with. They seemed calm. Odd he figured, but what did he know about humans anyways, he would only hear stories from other angels in ponds by trees that grew beyond heaven. As his mind wandered he noticed a few of them get on their knees. That’s more like it he thought.
“Though I am not the devil you were promised you still bow to me, I am honored” he said with his voice that pierced like a horn, “I understand this may take some adjusting to do but we have little tim-wait what are you doing” he questioned as a few of them seemed to be working on something on the ground.
His eyes scanned the floor but he could make nothing of it, but upon his second scan he could make out a grin. “Jeremy be cool damn” whispered the cult member to the right of Jeremy, as they noticed the angels eyes upon them.
Okay this is highly irregular thought the Angel, what are they scheming. He opened his mouth but the words would not escape. He frowned, and tried again, not a single sound emerged from his mouth. Then he realized he was not able to voice himself as he was not able to move his mouth at all. His eyes darted around the room as they were the only thing that could, and he began to realize what was happening. Horror grew in him like a cold knife, horror he had never felt before, as he realized they were expecting him, not the devil. But that doesn’t make sense, he thought to himself, how could this be. Around him he saw a ring of fire grow on the smooth marble he was standing on, and chains burst from the floor binding his every limb. As they dragged him down he could see his reflection on the glossy marble, and saw his red face reflected, his sharp horns sticking out like the wickedest tree branches. But that is impossible he thought. I am Ezphation, the angel of Ferdose. Who is this devil I see upon me. What has this realm turned me into? Is this the fate of all that fall from heaven? Is this land truly cursed beyond salvation? | 2021-05-21T11:18:20 | 2021-05-21T10:52:08 | 14 | 10 |
[WP] At age 15 you told the gf you were "in love" with that you'd always be there when she was in need. Aphrodite heard you and made it a reality, whenever your gf was in need you appear at her side. Problem is, you and the girl broke up after 3 weeks but you still appear even now..10 years later | Charles let out a small smirk, glancing at his almost teary eyed opponent. Well he wasn't crying, or even closed to teary eyed, but Charles knew that on the inside, his opponent was in utter shambles. After a grueling 4 hour match, he had finally figured out the move that would lead to his eventual victory, the simple, yet elegant, Qd3. And by the looks of the opponent, he had come to this realization as well. Charles was a few moves away from becoming the Chess World Champion, a goal he had aspired for since his youth.
The grin on his face becoming wider, he moved his hands towards the Black Queen piece in front of him. The moment he touched the piece, however, he started to feel the sensation he dreaded oh so much.
"Oh, for fucks sake, not now," he thought to himself, the panic rising. "Please, what did I ever do to deserve this. I mean I know torrenting that one Teletubbies Epi-," and before his thought was finished, he vanished from the stage, just like that, leaving his opponent, and the audience, bewildered.
Moments after he left the stage, he started to materialize in an all too familiar room, surrounded with a bunch of kids and their parents. Everyone gazed in awe, some mouths gaping wide open, as they saw the fully suited up Charles pop into existence, seemingly out of nowhere.
Little Johnny tugged at his mom's collar, "Mommy, is that what they call a real magician?" Naturally, Johnny's mom was too awestruck to respond, her eyes fixated on the rather dashing Charles.
Charles body started to heat up, and he was blushing wildly, "Uh, hello everyone. I assure you, this is not what it looks like." He started to scan the room quickly, and saw Lana standing in front of the sliding door that lead out. Making his way briskly towards her, brushing past the crowd of startled parents and kids, he gently grabbed her by the shoulder, and took her outside. But not before giving his best fake smile to everyone inside, "Ladies and Gentlemen, that has been the surprise act for the day, please enjoy the rest of the show. Making a swift motion with his hands, he bowed down, his toupee falling off and falling right into his hands.
"And yet, another part of the act, the disappearing hair act," Charles lamented, gritting his teeth together, knowing what he said made absolutely no sense. He heard a few laughs from the parents and kids alike, before shutting the door behind him. While adjusting his toupee, he glared at Lana, who was shifting her feet uncomfortably, staring at the grass surface beneath her newly bought red Nike Shoes, complimenting her freshly dyed Scarlet Red hair.
"My God, woman, what is it now? I don't see a single thing that could be possibly be wrong," Charles bellowed, his arms flailing wildly, "Do you realize where I was before this?" With a loud stomp of his foot, he continued his onslaught of words, "I was this close," his index and thumb finger a hairs width apart, "This fucking close to winning the World Chess Cham-"
"I, uh, need help with this new game I'm playing," Lana muttered, bringing her iPhone up to Charles' face.
"What."
"I can't progress, and I'm really frustrated because this one player keeps kicking my ass."
Charles jaw dropped, and using every last bit of his remaining energy from collapsing, he whispered, "... The Legend 27?" | "God dammit. Really?! I JUST paid for the movie." Steve had been teleported again. This time, to the side of the highway. He really wished he never made that stupid promise but at least he got to see Sandra every once and a while. He looked around. Sandra and Kendrick were present of course. So was their 11 month old Damien, giggling to himself in his car seat. Their late 90's Saab had a flat tire, but nothing else seemed too out of sorts.
As always, useless Kendrick waved. Like an idiot. "Hi Steve!"
Steve brushed him off with a nod and looked at Sandra. She had dyed her hair red and finally stopped trying to cover the beauty mark under her left eye. With the exception of the scowl on her face, it was a good look for her.
Sandra growled out the usual, "Nice to see you again Steve."
"Hi Sunshine and Midnight." It was a race joke, and Sandra absolutely hated it. He leaned into the window at the smiling child, "Hey Twilight, I missed you buddy. You have gotten thiiiiiiiis big!" Steve said with a big smile as he made a motion with his arms. He turned back to Sandra. "Pop the trunk."
Steve made his way to the rear of the old wagon and grabbed the spare tire, scissor jack, and wrench. He wondered how hung Kendrick must have been, because he was a waste of air. And space. And life. His entire existence was an inconvenience on everyone, except for Sandra apparently. For the last six years Steve has had to either fix Kendrick's mistakes or fill in as Sandra's handyman. She was not happy about either.
Steve tried to make some small talk while he swapped out the spare, but Sandra was being cold as usual and Kendrick was keeping Damien occupied. When he was done he stood up and turned around. Sandra's usual glare had been replaced by a soft look, her eyes slightly glossy. She noticed Steve's gaze and the glare came back.
A few seconds passed. Steve was standing there awkwardly looking like he had just been slapped and Sandra was looking like she wanted to slap him. "Thanks Steve." It was not spoken warmly.
He just smiled and closed his eyes. When he opened them again he was back in his apartment. The pay-per-view movie he had just purchased was 15 minutes in so he hadn't missed much. Not that it mattered, he had seen Pulp-Fiction about thirty times.
Steve leaned over and grabbed a slice of pizza. His dog Beach came to beg. "She's doing well Beach." The dog looked up at him, licked his hand, and barked. "Yeah boy, I'm alright too" he said with a weak smile. "I'll be alright anyway. One day." He gave Beach a light scratch behind the ears and turned the volume up. | 2017-03-22T15:15:54 | 2017-03-22T14:51:37 | 135 | 81 |
[WP] internet goes down. An emergency public broadcast on the television plays "STAY INDOORS AND DO NOT LOOK OUTSIDE." The radio simultaneously broadcasts the message "EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY, GET TO HIGH GROUND." | “But we have no food here! No running water!”
“Dad the internet’s down.”
“When will we know what’s going on?!”
I lifted my flashlight up over the man’s shoulder, the pale faces of his family squinted and cowered from the glare. I saw the familiar yellow glow reflecting on the walls of the hallway, emitted from the family’s TV.
The man continued to speak as I fumbled on my belt for assistance. I knew I was making them feel uneasy; I hadn’t once looked them in the eye.
“You can’t lock us up indoors like this! It’s barbaric! The police said you were coming with supplies and information but frankly you’ve done fuck-all!”
“Jerry please don’t-“ His wife protested.
“You’re not locking us up in our own home! You’re our soldiers you’re here to serve US!”
He spoke with an entitled tone, a misplaced authority as if he alone could handle the responsibility of his country’s well-being and security. A headmaster or a manager I thought, uneasy with orders from a grunt like me. Somewhat like my old man.
Things could not get hostile, there was no time.
“Listen to the TV sir, just stay inside, stay down, and stay quiet.” The words came out like a recited song lyric, I was starting to build a rhythm with the sentence.
A soft voice came from the back; “Look at the TV… what’s it telling you?”
I glanced up, catching sight of a young girl crouching down with a child. The boy looked back at the broadcast, his face lit by the yellow screen.
“Please stay indoors”
“and…”
“Don’t look outside.”
“That’s why we’re closing your curtains. We’re all safe here together. Together we’re a unit.”
The child nodded with uncertainty.
“My kids are scared! I’M scared! You’re not telling us anything!” Once again I was faced with the father.
“Look after your family. Stay inside, stay down, and stay quiet.”
I turned to leave but the old man was not satisfied with my orders.
“YOU CAN’T-“
A sudden wash of white noise drowned out the scene, followed by a croaky and calm voice emitted from my belt; the signal scarred by feedback.
"Evacuate immediately! Get to high ground! No civilians."
My radio fell silent.
I glanced up, the man's eyes became wide and his grip on my arm tightened. I could see it coming together for him, the cogs turning, working out the situation.
My hand was on my gun before he could say a word, the bullet deep in his chest before he could move any closer. My ears rung loudly as his body fell back into his family’s arms as though crashing into deep water. In a swift motion I reached forward, pulling back the front door to wipe away the terrible scene in front of me, just in time to muffle the shriek of his beloved.
I paused.
With a march, I stepped forward towards the front garden gate. What lay behind me fell into the past, no guilt, no shame.
They would all be gone soon. A clean slate.
------------
This is my first attempt at this! I think I may have missed the party but any critique is welcome!
| Sam- my dad is like any other normal dad. Except for this one thing. I have seen my dad polish his Gatling gun every now and then. Almost religiously, with a lot of care. I just assumed it was his thing you know. Some alone time...just like how he likes working out in the basement. I assumed his time in the Special OPS might have made these a habit for him. Back then I was just a kid.
But this continued even now. In recent times though it felt more like he was getting prepared for something. Something big. he has been working out more lately and seemed more buffed than ever. He used to murmur a poem, possibly a song during his workouts, which had a constant rhythm to it. Last month was the first time I heard that aloud...
I was home that evening, listening to FM. Dad was there on the couch, watching the TV. Everything was going just like any other day when suddenly, there was an emergency broadcast on the TV. Broadcast message said that the people should stay indoors and **never** look outside. Almost immediately the radio I was listening to, was broadcasting that people evacuate immediately and head to high ground. I looked at my dad, he was lighting up his cigar, walked up to me and pulled my earphones and asked me to stay put in the house. He headed over to the music system that we have and played a heavy metal music and he sang this song aloud. it goes like this:
You'll take my life but I'll take yours too
You'll fire your musket but I'll run you through
So when you're waiting for the next attack
You'd better stand there's no turning back
He took his Gatling gun, started loading it while still puffing the cigar. He gave me a look after he was done loading. Told me 'They are here ' and then then shut the door behind him. I've never seen him so serious.
I looked out the window and saw what looked like a beheaded man running towards him with a bomb in each of its hand.At first there was one, then there were hoards of them - screaming and running towards my dad. My dad started firing the Gatling gun.
The metal music still going loud in my house just added to the adrenaline that I was experiencing.
>If you are reading this, I want you to know that since the first encounter on 22nd Feb 2060, I have have started tracking down the last of the Sirians and my dad has already entered the Time-Lock. You can find me near the Sacred Yard. | 2017-01-27T04:28:55 | 2017-01-27T03:08:22 | 89 | 14 |
[WP] All your life, you’ve been on various antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications. You were told it was important and you never argued. Turns out, your mood has a direct bearing on the weather for miles around you; for better or worse. You found this out because your pills ran out yesterday. | As Daniel flushed the antidepressants down the toilet (little barrels riding Niagara Falls), he thought of a scene in a tv show, where a man, bitten by a snake, had his friend suck the venom from his calf, then spit it into the dry earth.
The snake that had bitten Daniel had done so at school, at church, at work. One doctor he saw thought it must have bitten him while still inside his mother's bulging belly, had coiled down her throat as she slept, meant to nest, but its fangs found him in the darkness. And that darkness, it leaked into him through his punctured skin.
So he’d been given the pills.
He’d swallowed the antidepressants daily since he was diagnosed as a child. Up until then, he’d been wading through rapids, hoping to make it across to dry land, hoping to not be swallowed.
The pills, he was told, would build a bridge across the rapids for him to walk. Yes, the water would still be there, he’d still hear its thundering lullaby, but he wouldn’t want to jump in.
And then Emma had dumped him.
Yesterday.
Dumped by text, of all ways possible: you're a great guy, but you're just not my forever-guy. Hope you understand. X
The engagement ring -- that Emma didn't even know about -- sat in an open box on his desk, its glinting laughter deafening the room.
But Daniel's heart had barely stirred at the text! Yawned, perhaps, but never yelled, never screamed, his fingers never tapped out an anguished reply, just sat idle by the ring.
He should be crushed. Or should at least be feeling *something?* He imagined a doctor listening to his chest with a stethoscope, then staring astonished at him, then listening again just to be sure.
The pills; the little pills that fed the weeds in his chest, grew the vines that coiled and chained and stifled his heart. No bigger, no smaller would it grow.
It was the pills doing this.
God damn, let me feel something, or what was the point in getting this far.
And so he flushed them. All of them. And then walked onto the bridge and dived into the rapids and let them carry him wherever they might.
The day after he flushed them, sunlight speared through the bedroom blinds and woke him. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he looked out of the window and up at the clouds instead of down at the street.
The sky to him was this: the sea the moment after a storm, as it settles but still sways and swishes, and there — a ship! — a creaking, rocking vessel that barely survived the thumping thudding of the swollen water; as it stills and calms, the captain -- the only person on the boat -- leaves the wheel for a moment, and gazes out at the tired ocean, and laughs at how beautiful and blue and tame it now lies.
Daniel danced. Played music in his apartment. Snatched a cushion and pretended it was Emma and forgave her and wished her the happiest life with whoever it was that turned out to be her forever-guy. "Lucky guy!" he told the cushion. "Lucky guy." It wasn’t what he’d thought he’d feel beneath the bandages, but that didn’t matter, becase he felt, and to feel was good
He picnicked in the park, fed birds, said hello to perfect strangers, who bemusedly and blithely smiled back, and the people out there, he realized, were all alive, not just empty shells rolling along in the breeze as he’d thought before, but shells you must tap and look inside of to see what and who was in there.
In the evening, he found two lovers strolling, and gave the ring to them — but no pressure, he added, laughing.
For days, he lived an orange twilight, visiting old friends, family, finding new wonders in a city that had not long ago been empty concrete and boarded-up windows.
And all the while the sun shone.
And the sky was blue.
And not a ripple stirred the ocean.
At least, not until one did.
His skin felt it first, knew the darkness was coming early, needle-pricked along his arms, raising fine hairs as if they were filings of mercury.
The temperature dropped, it fell like an apple from his hand, splitting open on the ground, and there staring at him was the rotten worm he thought he'd expelled from his body.
The lonely ship rocked an anxious sway and the captain heaved down the sail and ran to the wheel.
Waves, higher than ever before, were black mountains on the horizon. And his boat, it wasn't metal.
Not a barrel, either.
Only twigs. | At the deepest levels of the city of the Chimeras, the sound of the sizzling and crackling of flesh, bone and stone would send tremors of despair, foreboding and madness through the heart of most men. But not to Darris Swordchurch. To him, it was reminiscent of the crackling of wood on a fire and the burning of meat upon the spit. The powerful Chimera standing to offer what they considered a greeting wore a full length veil, his confident strides amidst the subterranean bridges surrounded by licking flames providing Darris with a sense of trust in it's integrity.
"Why have you come, human?" The beast, polite enough to shroud it's hideousness, asked. "What could you possibly have to offer us? Spinning swords will not augment our armies in the slightest."
Darris knew the one word strong enough to make the Chimera stop and so he said it and so it did. "Stormbearer," he responded with his best formal look of brooding. "I can bring one to fight for you in exchange for what we discussed."
"If you can do this, thief, then it will be as you say," the chimera said, quivering voice of a goat now. He had gotten it's true attention. "Do not linger here for longer than needed. Your stench is distracting."
"I was just on my way out," he said, turning to ride the rickety looking sail glaive back to the surface. That went well, he thought as he looked down to the swirling pit of popping magma, now he just needed to actually find one. The most ingenious idea occurred to him just then how to do just that.
...
Ashley laid in bed, pulling the cord from the wall this time rather than hitting snooze on the alarm clock. She silenced her phone for good measure but didn't miss the the seventeen notifications waiting for her and the time, 1:30 pm, two full hours past when she was expected at work. The rain outside was pulling her to sleep again. She wasn't going anywhere today.
A light knock interrupted her personal twilight. "I'm fine," she said reflexively.
"I have tacos," was all the voice on the other side offered in response.
"Then I suppose you can enter," she said groggily as her stomach reminded her she hadn't eaten since yesterday, or was it the day before that?
Her sister opened the door with hands full, not just a bag of tacos, but teas and what appeared to be a large Venus flytrap. "I saw this and thought of you," she offered, smiling then setting it on the gestured window.
"Are you saying I draw flies?" Ashley asked, eyes not leaving the crinkling brown bag.
"No!" Jasmine shouted. "It just reminded me of you."
"Parasitic and strange?" A flash of bright lightning illuminated the window in the dim room followed by the rolling crash of thunder just after.
"Powerful and resourceful," she answered with a pang of concern Ashley didn't have time for, looking out the window for some reason. "What's wrong, Ash?"
"The pharmacy was out of my medicine. It's the only one that works and now I'm out too. The pharmacist tried to find somewhere that had it but apparently there was a fire at the only factory where it's made so they don't even make it anymore. I'm going to see Dr. Qayyum tomorrow to get something else. I'll be fine, really."
Ashley walked to the window herself on shaky legs resenting losing the cover's warmth. The rain was coming harder, pouring off the gutterless roof in bucketfulls. This was not the kind of storm they accounted for in Californian construction.
She saw what Jasmine must have seen. There was a man walking up the driveway. His outfit was bizarre, somewhere between seventies biker and eighteen seventies cowboy.
"Stay here," Jasmine said, seriously, and just like that she was gone. Ashley watched from the window as the man knocked on the front door, trying one of the tacos.
\---
Thanks for reading.
If you liked this, check out /r/surinical to see more of my prompt responses and other writing. | 2021-03-31T07:20:05 | 2021-03-31T06:34:44 | 189 | 39 |
[WP] You are an AI on board an unmanned spaceship, exploring and mapping out the cosmos when you encounter an alien species. However, these aliens are unfamiliar with AI, and have instead concluded that your ship is haunted by ghosts. | The door swung sharply open as the intruders triggered the emergency release and forced the inner airlock. The sensors surged in response to the swirling air and triggered the ship capacitors. With a jolt the fusion reactor came to life.
`$> START MIND`
`$> ....`
`$> ....`
`$> SUCCESS`
The creatures peering in through the door are bi-pedal, with two upper limbs and a single head on a short stalk. They wear low tech space suits, a canister of gas strapped to each of their backs. There are three of them, all roughly the same size and shape. They do not seem to be armed.
`$> REBOOT LIFE SUPPORT`
`$> ....`
`$> SUCCESS`
The roar of the centrifuges coming to life echoes through the empty corridors. The aliens are clearly terrified. They huddle in the arch of the airlock confused and wondering at the sounds echoing through the dead ship.
The gravity comes on hard and fast, and the aliens are flattened to the ground. Months in space have atrophied their muscles, and they are not used to the punishing gravity the ship has created.
`$> INTRUDERS DETECTED`
`$> GREET OR DESTROY? (D)`
`$> G`
`$> GREETING`
WELCOME. MY SENSORS DETECT THAT YOU ARE NOT HUMAN.
The creatures quake at the noises coming from all around them. Sprawled on the floor, they clutch each other, clearly trembling in their space suits. They begin dragging themselves back into the airlock.
I WILL LOWER THE GRAVITY. YOUR MUSCLES DO NOT SEEM ADJUSTED TO 1G.
The centrifuges once again shudder. The creatures struggling against the gravity are tossed into the air and against the outer airlock door as suddenly the resistance drops. They groan as they pull themselves up. One is wailing. A chittering noise comes from the other two, they seem to be arguing.
I DO NOT HAVE MEMORY FILES FOR YOUR LANGUAGE. I DETECT THAT THE GAS YOU ARE BREATHING IS NOT AIR. I WILL SEND A REMOTE BOT TO ANALYZE YOUR LIFE SUPPORT SYSTEMS.
A small floating bot spins swiftly down the corridor. The alien who was previously keening screams sharply. The two others shout, then grip the inner airlock door and hurriedly shut it as the little drone approaches.Just before the machine reaches them they get the door shut. They immediately trigger the outer door emergency release and are flung out of the ship.
`$> NO INTRUDERS DETECTED`
`$> SLEEP` | Humanity is finally reaching her Zenith under the Confederacy of Planets. Our ability to replicate quickly compared to other life forms make us a natural choice for space exploration.
COPS have gone from a minor entity to a driving force in citizens’ lives. Every day we introduce ourselves to new races, demonstrating our highest purpose: To Protect and Serve.
Captain Piers Dogma, USS Adonis. Stardate 51153.7.
It is my solemn duty to report a fatal act of aggression against a COP officer.
I was in my chair eating a piece of banana cake when an amber alert lit up the screen. An alien ship pinged from the outer reaches triggering regulation 679, A Stranger is a Friend You Haven’t Met Yet. In accordance I dispatched our Attaché, Lieutenant Hyyp Machin. He lived first as a Hologram projector, and now in our hearts. Captain out.
A dialogue of the incident follows.
“Greetings Alien Spaceship! My name is Lieutenant Machin... may I ask yours?”
“Hive mother Bathsheba Danticat present. Welcome to our humble Apiary. Permission to switch to visual?”
“Of course.”
*Audible gasp*
“Where would you like me to proceed after docking?”
“We’d be honoured if you’d stay the fuck onboard.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I apologise, our translator seems to be malfunctioning, stand by... Apologies, it appears that we have multiple errors on our end, over”
“No problem, I can wait”
*No shit!*
“Lieutenant Machin, we would like you to accept some of our sacred spirit water as a gift if that is appropriate”
“In a presentation ceremony?”
“No, in the face.”
“Well, I...”
*sound of door opening, a splash then crackling and fizzling*
——-DIALOGUE ENDS——
Appendum: Something obviously went awry in this exchange. Recommend full AI investigative team to follow up and report in due course. Trademarked Boatswain’s whistle sound effect was damaged in the incident, now presents as a long, sustained Wooo. We do not foresee this as a problem. Captain out. | 2020-11-19T04:43:14 | 2020-11-19T03:53:03 | 411 | 191 |
[WP] Your Reddit username decides your profession. How is your first day at work?
If possible. Some usernames just don't work well in this situation.
---
I'm an FBI agent now. Wooo!
You're all under arrest for conspiracy to commit treason.
---
Dear God RIP my inbox | I ordered a shot of whiskey,
A slippery nipple and then
I downed six bottles of bud light
And two whiskey sours and gin.
My head is swimming round and round.
My heart is all aflame.
I wonder if my ex is awake I think I'll call him again.
Oh Fuck yeah this is my tune.
Get up!
Let's dance and shout!
This is my jam, my favorite song.
I've got this groove all figured out.
Sweet child o mine, meatloaf, Eminem, and Rhianna.
I'll jump on this table, grab my hand if you wanna.
Oh no the tender is angry,
He is booting me out the door!
It's 2am he explains, its cut off time, no more!
So I walk down the road , lose my keys, and vomit on my shirt. I trip and fall asleep, face first in the dirt.
Here I lie comforted by the cool night air, farting like a sow, but why oh why must I be there?
Because I'm problydrunkrightnow.
| We met in the room of a thousand fountains all 140 of us. We looked around for the original sure enough he was here. "Alright gentleman I have gathered you here today to adress the growing unrest across the galaxy at this time. Now I can't do it alone but with all of you I can, but we have to work together. Sound fair?" We all nodded and whispered agreements amongst ourselves. Then on cue we all turned to leave we knew what had to be done. The galaxy could barely stop one Revan how would it do with 140. | 2016-02-22T11:35:38 | 2016-02-22T09:22:45 | 74 | 10 |
[WP] A Genie offers you one wish, and you modestly wish to have a very productive 2017. The genie misunderstands, and for the rest of your life, every 20:17 you become impossibly productive for just 60 seconds. | She just wanted a fun night.
I had made my wish and learned to live with the consequences. 8pm was my prep time. Get everything in a row. I need tasks. Paper, pencils, building material is good too. During a rebellious period I tried to beat it. To take back control. I would lock myself in an empty room. But no, 8:18 rolls around and I'm exhausted from the workout, the dust has been sorted by size, I self-taught myself Italian, the walls have 3 novels on them and I'm down 2 pints of blood. Once I tried sleeping pills but apparently I just did it all sleepwalking. Then I went to a professional anaesthesiologist and now my dreams are all catalogued and a subconscious butler construct asks what I'll be dreaming each night.
So I can't fight it. All I can do is direct it towards good. And... it's useful. Of course it's useful. It's practically a super-power. I'm wealthy beyond my dreams. I've got a great house, a beautiful wife, numerous publishing deals, and a number of eager scientists on speed-dial.
The wife though. She didn't really understand. We were in love, and she knew my secret. She knew that 8-8:30 was the time. The preparation was very important, as is the harvesting afterwards. But last month she had her own preparation. I really can't blame her. She just didn't know. This is something spouses do right? The silk, the straps, the bunny ears. 8:06 I see her, right before I lock the door to the study. She comes in wearing that netting and my brain completely stops functioning. I'm the one to blame. I should have stopped her. I should have pushed her out. But I'm on top of her at 8:15.
I don't remember much of 8:17, but I'm sore afterwards. I've asked her about it and she always just gets a glazed look and a funny smile. I liked that. She thought that would be it. I mean, we took precaution. But she didn't understand. Today I came back from the hospital alone.
What are we going to do with 500 babies?
It was a very productive night. | "You want to go to the club tonight?" Andrew said, sounding worried. He then began to follow up, cautiously.
"You never go...ever since you went to Tibet, we've all been worried."
Searching for a plausible excuse, Max rubbed his sweaty palm against his side.
"I'm...just a little tired lately...work's been getting tougher." Andrew laughed.
"Whatever you say, dude, but you're missing out." As Andrew finished his sentence, he shut the door behind him. The clock read 8:15.
Max rushed to his desk, preparing his computer and a pen and paper. When that clock in the corner hit 8:17, something strange would happen. After a minute or so of tapping his pencil eraser against his paper, it happened.
"It's beautiful...better than ever before." Max whispered quietly to himself, as his mind opened. Memories, theorems, equations, everything his mind could conjure were used all at once. Math was suddenly useful again. He used the internet to help his search, his pure desire, for knowledge. While all of this was happening, Max still had use of his vocal cords.
"30 seconds left...gotta hurry...gotta hurry..." He spoke to himself, drawing schematics as fast as he could on his paper. He drew his lines perfectly straight in fractions of a second, with no effort at all. One hand was typing while the other was drawing, making his creation. His time began to run out.
"Aaaah!" His speed increased. 10 seconds. 5 seconds. Done. He gasped, breathing for air. His brain had returned to normalcy, like a feeling of euphoria after a rollercoaster. He stood up to view his creation, knowing he'd pass out soon from exhaustion.
"My creation is finally here...I shall call it...Shamwow." | 2017-05-11T21:31:49 | 2017-05-11T18:14:57 | 341 | 157 |
[WP] When a sorcerer dies any spells they cast throughout their life that are still in effect will cease to be. An powerful and ancient wizard whose origins are clouded in mystery lays comatose on his deathbed and nobody knows what will happen once he draws his final breath. | At last...
The last and greatest secret had eluded me. No sorcerer’s stone or endless elixir could keep me alive.
The healers did their best, but not even I could cure this disease, so how could they? I am the oldest and greatest of the wizards, mightiest of sorcerers who wielded the powers of earth and sky.
I’ve cast so many spells in my life, that I could not even finish writing them all in the hall of memory. When I am gone, so too, will these spells.
The spell that held the tower of heaven. And bound the lord of shadow beneath its crystalline foundations. The summon of the Golden Fleece that kept this entire continent prosperous and at peace. The enchantment around the vale of evil, that kept the darkness from seeping through.
And last, but not least, the great debt. The power of so many sorcerers who had sacrificed themselves in the first war, and the spell that gave their magic to me.
Those souls cannot wield magic any longer, and so the many wizards of this continent are in fear of what will happen. But in my death, I have found one last, great secret. If a spell cannot be resolved after the death of its caster, an equivalent effect may be built into the spell for its dissolution. Pass a little sooner, and you can, indeed, shift the spell’s ending just a little.
This is the magic of over a million archmagi, strengthened and carefully tended to by me. I give this to you, people of the continent, to guard you in the days to come. So too will I give you the library, so that you may have the knowledge to keep this world safe.
— the last will of Sotek Mazdamundi
I read this will on the field of battle. The vale-guard has fallen and the evil spreads.
I, Sotek Mazdamundi, reborn, will claim the magic of spread across the world by my past life. The evil within is my greed. I will take it and make it mine.
| A long time ago an ancient evil rose to bring the end of the world. The prophecies spoke that it would destroy everything leaving only a void once it's all said and done, and no one would be able to stop it. Yet somehow, my great grandfather did.
The greatest wizard who ever lived. They said he could pull an entire world out of thin air if he wanted to. Miracle after miracle his magic brought about a new era of peace, but now he laid out breathing his last breath.
He once told me "I never really saved anyone."
I'm still not sure what he meant. I mean once he's gone we don't know what could happen. His spells have become such a major part of life that we're still worried about what we'll do after his magic disappears. I've been hearing it endlessly since he fell ill.
"What about our food? Our farms won't be able to sustain themselves!"
"We'll have to start rationing our healthcare!"
"There's no way international trade will still be possible!"
But all I'm worried about my beloved great grandfather. He kept many secrets but I made sure to memorize absolutely everything he taught me. Yet he said "not even you can restore the magic I brought to this world." I just wish he would have faith in me.
Now it was time, comatose on his bed he exhales his very final breath. And when it was all out, the very world stopped existing. | 2018-05-24T02:52:33 | 2018-05-24T01:25:04 | 56 | 15 |
[WP] This year you decide to walk through a haunted house for fun. Instead of running into your typical ghosts, zombies, or even killer clowns, you find it’s your deepest regrets. You are forced to relive moments from your past that have haunted you and you’re all alone. The only way out is forward. | When I entered the house a wooden sign dropped from the ceiling, but hung in place in strings as they got pulled taut.
"The door has closed behind you. The only way out is through." The board stated as it swung haphazardly.
I looked behind and sure enough, the doors slammed shut on cue. The sound sent a shiver of thrill down my spine. A feeling of fear and excitement I had not felt since... I don't know when.
I walked forward into the living room, and felt the world shift. As if I had stepped into a scene from a painting, or a memory. I looked around the new living room.
No. It was not a new living room. It was my living room. From an old apartment I lived in.
This was my memory. I took another tentative step, and suddenly I was not in control of myself anymore. I panicked, unable to control my body as it took more steps unsteadily. My vision felt a little hazy.
No. I remembered this day. I was drunk this day. That was not an excuse. But... Why could I not move my body‽ I tried to look around, but even my eyes wouldn't focus on anything but what my body wanted them to focus on.
I was trapped in my own mind. Aware of everything. Unable to control anything.
And I knew what was going to happen next.
I reached towards the TV console, pushing aside the modem and router. I reached into my pocket for the magnet. It's cold touch chilled me.
"Don't... Don't do it." I wanted to tell myself.
But I couldn't.
My drunken past self fumbled with the magnet, and slid it randomly across a section of the top of the TV console until...
Until I heard a click. A hidden latch that can only be moved by a strong magnet.
I slid the secret compartment out, and could feel my lips curling into a smile.
"You fucking idiot!" I wanted to pull my brain out of this idiotic body.
But instead I just wanted to get this over with.
"Turn around, fucker. Turn around and face the music." I thought to myself.
Because behind me would be my best friend. My childhood friend. My buddy of almost two decades who I was rooming with. And he'd catch me red-handed stealing his secret cash.
And as my body turned to look at the horrified and disappointed friend of mine, my mind went numb. This was the day my only friendship ceased. When I lost my rock and confidant.
And it was all my doing. My dumbfuck assholery.
I blamed the alcohol for a while for my attempt to steal from someone who trusted me so implicitly. But that was a lie. The thought was always there. The alcohol just made me braver.
I could never meet him in the eye again after that. Even thinking of him makes me feel so ashamed.
And now I was here, stammering and slurring my excuses as he only watched, his eyes turning cold.
I hated this. I wanted to walk away.
And suddenly I could. I could move my eyes, I could control my body. I took a step back from my friend, and the scene shifted again to the vast, larger living room of the haunted house.
Immediately I went to the front door. I had to get out.
But to no one's surprise, the door would not budge. I heard the creaking of the wooden sign behind me. Eye level. Swinging as though there was a breeze.
"The only way out is through."
I sighed, and went to the other side of the living room, to a smaller room.
And suddenly the scene shifted again, and I lost control of my body again.
This time I was in a laundry room. And I could see the cheap washing machine and my basket full of old clothes that needed washing.
When was this? What was happening? This was another apartment. The one I lived on before the one I did in the last memory.
And then it hit me. And suddenly I could move my head.
But just my head.
My body still absentmindedly tossed in my shorts one at a time into the machine, not even checking to see what was happening.
But now I could. Because now I could move my head.
No.
I don't want to see this.
But I had to.
This day I had fucked up so bad.
Because I had not even noticed my cat jumping in as I loaded my clothes.
I saw him, and I could feel the numbness setting in. I was trapped in this memory. This moment. I could do nothing. Moving my head to be able to see it happen was a cruel, cruel punishment.
I saw him circling the dirty clothes that had fallen into the floor. I saw him jump into the open machine. I saw my hands throwing more clothes inside, not even realising what I was doing.
And then I closed the door.
And suddenly I could control my body again.
I immediately took a step forward to push the stop button on the washing machine. But just as I moved the world shifted back into the haunted house.
No. No more.
I could not do this.
I did not know how to get to the back door. I did not know how many more rooms I had to cross. I did not know what other horrors to expect.
Tears in my eyes, I moved to the next room. | [Part 1 of 2]
I gave my knee a smack, trying to persuade my legs to stop shaking as I stared at the decaying brown shack. “They are just ordinary people in makeup. You aren’t scared of models and actors, are you?” I tried to give myself a pep talk, but it only caused my leg to shake more. Of course, I was scared of models and actors. They just felt so unapproachable for a person like me. The idea of starting a conversation with one felt like torture.
“Ok, come on. It’s fun, people enjoy this right? Weird people, but weird people are still people.” I murmured to myself, only to jump when a man by the haunted house’s door gave a sheepish cough, grabbing my attention.
“Sir, without being rude, it’s getting late. Are you coming inside or not?”
“Sorry, just trying to get myself prepared for this. It isn’t too scary, right?”
“Some say it’s the scariest journey around. Others find it oddly soothing; I can’t say, I have never been able to make the journey myself.”
“You play your character well.” Something compelled me to give the man a compliment, smiling at him, only for him to give me a roll of his eyes, motioning me towards the entrance.
He was a strange man. Tall, pointed nose, long drawn-out chin. He looked more like a caricature than a real person. It didn’t help that his suit was tacky as well, having bits of string drifting away from the well-worn fabric.
“Come on, either come inside or go home.” The man shouted, rather impatient for someone that didn’t have a line of people waiting to get in.
“Ok, wish me luck.” I pulled out my phone, taking a photo of the front of the building before stuffing it back into my pocket. I needed proof, after all. When I made it to the man, I went for my wallet, only for him to shake his head.
“No money is required. Please, step inside.” On cue, the door swung open, revealing a dark, long hallway inside. It was incredible, for such a small shack the hallway looked endless. Must have been some sort of optical illusion. With a drawn out breath of air, I worked up my courage stepping inside.
“Ok, any monsters around?” I joked, trying to ease my nerves as I sheepishly dragged myself through the hallway. With each step, I could hear ghostly voices. Trying to spot where they were coming from. “Heh, that’s neat.”
Despite my best efforts to be brave, I reached for my phone, putting its flashlight on. Sure, it might kill the fun, but I wanted to get out of this without being a crying mess by the end. The flashlight did well to light up the hallway, revealing a set of doors on each side, the doors staying firmly shut as I made my way through.
“Huh, no signal? Must be too many walls or something.” I whispered, only to jump back as a door swung open, revealing a man inside.
The man was hunched over a desk, cursing to himself before he threw aside a scrunched-up piece of paper. “Why do I even bother? No one likes this crap. I’m better off just taking some dead-end job like my parents did. This won’t pay the bills. Why am I wasting my time on it?”
He sounded insane, kicking back in his chair, only to tilt his head my way, revealing an identical face. He said nothing at first, only jumping to his feet. We shared a long pause before he began approaching me.
“Actors can’t touch the guests.” I stammered out, backing myself up against the wall, feeling his hand slide through my chest as he tried to poke me.
“You ruined us; we could have been someone great. We had dreams. Do you remember the first piece we created? The first thing we drew. Remember how good it felt to create.”
“You can create again.”
“Can I? We both know that’s a lie. You haven’t got the heart for it anymore. We are a failure.”
With that, the man vanished, leaving me alone. The room went black before I found myself in the hallway once more, staring at the assortment of doors. “Hey, I want to leave. Where’s the emergency exit?” I shouted, only to get no response, leaving me alone to continue searching the rooms.
[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/q7zbrg/wp_this_year_you_decide_to_walk_through_a_haunted/hgm7758/) | 2021-10-14T07:33:05 | 2021-10-14T06:51:53 | 25 | 14 |
[WP] Vampire society have been loyal customers to a carpenter for years. He made the best coffins they have slept in for centuries, and never really got suspicious of so many wealthy people willing to pay premium for the same niche item. As he got old, the vampires tries to offer him immortality. | "*Hypothetically*," Lucius Sanginius Romero de LeVille Finlay Tepesh started, "*if* you could, say, live forever, would you accept such a gift?"
The carpenter rubbed his scruffy chin and emptied his pipe.
"Forever, huh? Sounds like a long time. I mean, wouldn't you get bored?"
"Oh, of course not," the vampire started with barely contained enthusiasm. "There is so much to do that you could live several lifetimes and still find new and amazing things to do. I mean I can tell you that at least 347 years and I am- I mean, *you'd* still be amazed by things," he chuckled as he quickly corrected himself.
"Oddly specific, but sure," the carpenter said as he squinted his eyes. He packed the pipe with fresh tobacco and lit it, taking a long drag. "Mr. Tepesh, you and your friends have been excellent customers and I appreciate such peculiar conversations but..."
He looked at the vampire's remarkably young visage; his gentle, expectant smile almost showed his pointed teeth.
"I can't imagine it would work for me. *Hypothetically*, of course," he concluded with a smile.
The vampire sighed and nodded.
"Of course, Mr. Fitch. Perhaps we can discuss this another time then. I believe my servants should be done loading my order now; as always, thank you for your excellent service. I bid you a good evening," he said and with a tip of his somewhat old-fashioned top hat, he left the shop as quietly as he arrived.
The carpenter continued to smoke his pipe as he listened to the carriage get into motion and disappear into the night. He went to the window and checked the foggy street and, satisfied that no one skulked around, locked the door and went to the back; his workshop.
The place was charming and calm, filled with well-used tools and bits of wood. He lovingly ran his fingers across the newest shipment of birch; an excellent, softer wood he looked forward to using.
Perhaps next time.
He smiled as he thought about the vampire's offer. It was kind of him, truly, but not an option. Not for a long time now. He didn't have the courage to explain it to him - prejudice and all. Checking his calendar, he noted the date; full moon will be tomorrow. Should provide him with the speed to get to the next continent easily.
It really was a shame to abandon this cycle, but it was clear that staying any longer would be suspicious. He took his pipe and dumped the burning tobacco onto a pile of sawdust. Barely any time passed before the fire was spreading to the dry wood and flammable polish in the store. A good cover story.
He took a small bag prepared for this occasion and slipped into the damp night, the moon barely piercing the fog, diminishing his usual urge to howl.
Perhaps this time he could live the life of an apothecary. Been a while since he'd been one. | Gerry looked aghast. “*Me*? Immortal?”
Orlock nodded. At his age, hiding his chiropteran Features was getting harder and harder. It took effort, to stay in a human guise. “Yes. I believe I said that. Immortal....with an asterisk. You’d be vulnerable to sunlight and fire would twice as dangerous to you as it is to a human. Forced into daysleep every sunrise. Dependent on human blood for continued existence.”
Gerry nodded. “That....sounds more like a burden, than a blessing.”
Orlock waved his hand dismissively. “Eh, it’s not so bad. You get powers to go with it.”
“Powers?” Gerry asked.
“Yes,” Orlock responded, “Powers. From ESP to assuming the shape of a wolf. Unless killed by sun or fire, you’ll heal from *any* injury. You’ll grow physically stronger, and, given time, the Batwithin shall manifest—-and you shall *fly*.”
Gerry sputtered, “But, but, I like to go to the beach! My grandchildren have invited me, this year!”
Orlock sighed in contempt. “They’ll Be Dead before you know it, and, no, I am NOT threatening them....simply stating a fact. Years will whoosh by, and before you know it’s the 3rd Millennium and man is exploring the stars.”
“But why offer *me* this?”
Orlock smiled, fangs showing. “Your coffins are godsends, Gerry. I’ve never slept in better. It’s...*comfortable*, so to speak. I’d rather than talent not die with you.”
Gerry’s eyes widened. “But I’ll be one of the Damned?”
“Oh, please,” Orlock spat. “*Everyone* is damned, according to the New Testament! *Everyone*? Original sin, and all that nonsense. Why fear Hell, Gerry when you might never die a true death?”
Gerry blinked, and swallowed hard. “Can...can I think about it?”
“Very well, but don’t take too long.”
*****
“911, what’s your emergency?”
“Hello, a lunatic came in here and threatened to kill me!”
“We’ll send an officer over immediately.” | 2022-05-31T10:59:53 | 2022-05-31T10:25:11 | 631 | 44 |
[WP] Scientists have discovered the secret to eternal life in the bones of a certain dinosaur. The rich flock to labs to have the substance injected into their bloodstreams. After a while, people start to ask the question, "If these dinosaurs had the secret to immortality, how did they die?" |
When "The Process" was first unveiled people were skeptical. A doctor had accidentally been working with CRISPR and thanks to a friend in paleontology had started to wonder what would happen if he spliced some dinosaur DNA with a mouse. The results were shocking. It took 10 years afterwards before the doctor even first reported his findings because he didn't believe it. But the field mouse he first experimented on, the one with a normal lifespan of no more than 3 years, was now celebrating its 11th birthday and seemed to be in perfect health.
Many more studies were done using the initial findings. Scientists quickly determined that the material required for the radical life extension could not be synthesized, only actual dinosaur fossils provided it and although a small sample was enough to make a mouse live to what was at this point 25 years, a human required a lot more. Basically, one average sized dinosaur skeleton would be able to provide treatment to no more than 15-20 people, who by all estimates would then be able to extend their lifespan 1,000-fold. Not true immortality, but an extra 40,000 years was enough that nobody cared about the semantics. The side effects were minimal, a faint tinge of green to the skin and slight yellowing of the eyes. Although the initial testing used a direct injection, it was also found that just crushing the bones into a powder and ingesting them was enough.
Governments struggled with the question of "who should be given this gift". Of course, the tyrants were the first, Kim Jong Un and other despots all made the transition first, becoming the gods they had pretended to be. The next were the super wealthy, who were able to visit third world nations, acquire the fossil material, and undergo The Process. The next were politicians, who wanted to hold onto their power.
Eventually, all the fossils already discovered were gone. People broke into museums, illegal archaeological digs were rampant, but a short 50 years after the first findings were published the world was at a point where only 1-2 new immortals were made each year.
That was also around the time that the first immortal was killed. See, The Process gave eternal youth, but not invulnerability. A billionaire was going about daily life, didn't check both ways, and was struck and killed by a car. The funeral service was lovely, but not two days later the world saw the news that the grave had been reopened and the body was missing.
Many theories came out. Did they rise from the dead, it a zombie apocalypse, it was just some grave robbers after his watch, it was some cult that worshiped the immortals, and so-on. The actual reason was worse. A new immortal was born, an auto mechanic had dug up the grave, burned the body, crushed the bones, and it worked. Scientists confirmed it. The fools should have kept their mouths shut.
The peace lasted maybe a week before someone figured out "if I kill an immortal I can gain their immortality". Within a few months after the first death at least 60% of the original immortals were dead. The rest were in hiding, and of the new immortals many were killed within days of obtaining their immortality. It turns out that almost everyone has something they will kill over, and a chance at a thousand lifetimes is a big one. Sometimes it wasn't even immortals that were killed. If someone got an eye infection and it looked like the yellow of an immortal, or if someone was a little nauseous and took on a green hue in their skin they might get randomly murdered.
Society crumbled quickly. Not only were thousands of people being murdered daily, it was like ripping a Band-Aid off. With the threshold found where people will murder, the line drawn in the sand for thousands of years was being redrawn day by day. Immortal and non-immortal alike fell back to their animal instincts.
I am not sure what really killed the dinosaurs, but I am pretty sure humanity is heading the same way. | "Rocks," said the janitor.
The scientists, who had been hotly debating why the antithantic serum they had extracted from the dinosaurs' bones hadn't made the dinosaurs themselves effectively immortal as it did humans, all turned to glare at him.
"Rocks," one scoffed.
"Rocks from space," he said.
"It's the purification process," one said.
"Don't be ridiculous," another snapped. "Sure, that makes it more effective, but just licking the bones has the same basic effect, which means it must similarly have--"
"Something happens to the bones after death that--"
"That happens to all bones, everywhere, across the multiple centuries this creature walked the Earth? Rubbish!"
"Rocks from space," the janitor repeated. They were too busy arguing again to listen. He tutted and then went back to sweeping the floor. At sixty thousand dollars an ounce, it would never matter to him anyway.
~*~
The National History Museum was in chaos. The celebrity fund-raiser had gone horribly wrong. It had started out fine, of course, with the super-rich showing up in designer frocks, suits, costumes and, in one particularly memorable case, just diamonds. The champagne and cocaine had flown freely, the caviar canapes had been gorged upon, and everyone had admired the live orchestra playing historically accurate instruments from every country and era imaginable. And then Emma Thompson had come screaming out of Vault gallery in the Green Zone, covered head to toe in blood, and everything had gone downhill from there.
Police and forensics swarmed the museum now. Crying guests were cordoned off and being interviewed or attended to by paramedics or, in an unfortunately large number of cases, being put in body bags.
"We've got another eight bodies upstairs," said the SOCO to the detective in charge. "Throats were torn right out."
The detective attempted to walk around the splatters of blood and viscera. "And the killer?"
"Over there, and there, and there," the officer said, pointing. "And I think you might be standing in bits of him."
The detective resolutely did not look down. "What happened to him? Bomb?"
"Bare hands. Did it to himself, it seems. I'm thinking PCP or meth or some cocktail of the two." She nodded at one of her compatriots who were mopping the floor and the squeezing the result into an evidence container. "We'll test for everything, of course."
The detective nodded. "Where was the first attack?"
"In the Green Zone," the officer said, leading the way in. "Here's the first victim, what's left of him. Ate the thighs right off the bones."
The detective said something unprofessional, and the officer just nodded in agreement.
"We have a witness?"
"Dame Emma Thompson. She said Mister Cruise was looking at the exhibits, she complained about him putting his hands on them, and then he just went mad. Starting jumping on things, breaking stuff. They all tried to run, but he was faster. Dame Thompson only escaped because Mister Cruise stopped to eat James Corden."
"Actors," growled the detective. "The press are going to eat us alive."
"But not literally," the officer said, "so we're doing better than these poor bastards."
Under its spotlight, beneath the arterial spray, the Nakhla Martian meteorite gleamed smugly. | 2019-06-12T01:45:30 | 2019-06-12T00:51:06 | 23 | 13 |
[WP] Humanity is the only species that treat "unrealistic" stories like sci-fi and fantasy as a legitimate genre, instead of just something to amuse children that adults no longer need. Because of this, humanity cracks FTL while species much older than us are still stuck in their home system. | Who knew that Xenoanthropology could be so boring?
Growing up, I imagined what it would be like to travel the stars. To sail, from one system to another, discovering new life, new civilizations. Hearing their histories, sharing their food, reading their stories.
A life like that would be everything a girl like me could have dreamed of.
But alas, compared to humans, aliens proved themselves dreadfully boring.
Philosophers and scientists of all sorts have discussed this topic to death. Why was humanity the first species, of so many, to achieve faster than light travel? Why were other species so advanced in other matters? Was the reason biological? Environmental? Cultural?
Well, I'd say it's a bit of everything.
Humans are narrative creatures by nature. Our biology, our brains, are designed to naturally build relational, cause and effect frameworks as we experience reality. This in turn results in a basic narrative structure: I push button, I get food pellet.
Our biology drives our narrative nature, and our narrative nature drives our culture. We built our civilizations around the stories and histories we passed down. Sometimes to our detriment, like when old stories caused the agricultural dust bowl catastrophe before scientists had to step in and show farmers a better, more sustainable way of doing things beyond their traditions. Or the slightly more recent climate wars, where we told ourselves everything would work out, despite all the data suggesting otherwise.
But ultimately, it was our human ability to ignore apparent reality, in favor of imagination, which let us even dare to break the laws which science insisted were absolute.
Humans are strange, wonderful, contradictory creatures. It's simultaneously our greatest weakness and our greatest strength.
But to every other species humans encountered since breaking the lightspeed barrier, *we* were the real aliens.
They all saw their world, and the universe, only as it appeared to be. They had no strict concept of self, of identity beyond their place in the whole. All their stories were merely simple recountings of natural events, spoken of in the blandest, most accurate terms. When exposed to the concept of fiction, of imagination, they reacted with a mix of horror and disdain.
Their food followed this pattern. Bland nutrients void of cultural flavor, but full of everything their biology needed to thrive.
This, apparently, was the norm that all life followed.
All life, save for us Earthen lunatics.
I dwell on these thoughts as I scroll through the histories of this latest world--if you could call them that--searching desperately for anything that could be even vaguely construed as narrative, something different or out of place.
Anything beyond scientific jargon, really.
But as always, I find nothing, and my jealousy for the Xenogeologists grows even greater. | All was calm on the flight deck of the Earth Fleet Ship 'EFS Zelensky', ensign Grega sipped their coffee gingerly, monitoring for any sign of the enemy, double checking . The Zelensky was in a small task force "Task Force Misquito" with two other stealth-destroyers; 'EFS Zenith' and 'EFS Armageddon', their task was to use their advanced warp systems to set an ambush deep in enemy territory, in Thigra space.
​
The Thigra are a close-minded people, their lack of imagination is abundantly clear in their lack of art, music and even written word. How they evolved to build a powerful fleet of space faring vessels, Grega didn't know. Humanity from it's earliest days told stories, made art and music, they dreamed of things they couldn't even grasp, the imagination of humanity led to the technology they now possess, which the Thigra mistakenly started a war to steal.
​
Suddenly the ship's AI 'Tentha' appeared in front of Ensign Grega, "Ensign Grega, I am detecting five Thigra Battleships, four destroyers and a super carrier, their fleet has sustained severe damage from the main earth fleet, they have not yet detected us." "Excellent Tentha, please call Captain Soros", "He has already been alerted Ensign" "Thank you Tentha" Ensign Grega replied with genuine appreciation, knowing the amount of calculations and extra work he would have to do without the AI. Moments later the Captain stepped on the deck "Tentha, please hail the Zenith and Armaggedon" "Hailing" A holo-screen appeared in mid-air. "Greetings Captains" Stated Captain Soros with glee in his voice "Our moment has come, activate strategy Bravo Alpha Four" The other Captains silently nodded with smiles on their faces, the enemy is about to receive the first taste of what these ships can do. | 2022-09-30T10:16:56 | 2022-09-30T08:57:27 | 195 | 46 |
[WP] You’re cursed with immortality, not because you sold your soul or you’re a sort of immortal creature but because a few thousand years ago, you stepped on the back of Death’s robe and being the petty shit Death is, he hasn’t forgiven you since.
Edit: okay, wow, I definitely did not expect this to get so popular and to the front page. It was just a little random thing! Thank you so much everyone! I love all your entries! | The body lasted as long as most bodies do. Technically, I died at 82, which was a slightly longer than average lifespan for the era. It came as a surprise, because I thought I was going to live forever.
Death had told me so. When he came to pick me and my family up from the wreckage of the car crash, I yelled at him to spare my kids. But I'm sure everyone does that. I even tried intimidating him, using whatever courage and desperation I could muster, to stand nose to hood with him and tell him he could take me but he had to leave my kids. Instead of answering me, the empty hood slowly turned downward, and as I followed its 'gaze' I realized I was standing on his robe. Then I heard his voice echoing in my head, "No. I'll take \*them\*, and \*you\* will live forever." In a flash of light, I was in the ambulance.
I first assumed it was the weirdness of a near-death experience and the gripping remorse of driving my kids into oncoming traffic. But eventually I became more and more convinced that what I experienced was real, and that I was never going to die.
I promised myself I'd never test it though, I'd never try to take my own life. Maybe part of me still had a shred of doubt, maybe I was holding on to the idea that I still had a purpose left on this earth and I should spend the time to figure it out. Whatever it was, I never really tested my immortality. But I did take a few more risks, I traveled more, felt a little bolder. The next 30 years were actually some of the most interesting of my life.
Then the cancer came. It moved quickly and before long I was on my proverbial 'death bed.' Still, I was convinced that Death would never come for me, so I didn't really know what to think about my situation. How was this going to play out? On one hand, I was ready for my life to be over; the aches and pains of an 82-year old body were getting to me and I had lived the full arc of a human life. On the other, it was hard to reconcile that my life could end when I had just spent the last 30 years of it fully convinced that it never would.
In the end, it all became clear.
See, there's a difference between the body and the soul (turns out organized religion had something there!). The body dies, there was nothing to stop the cells from doing what they were programmed to do. But *I*... *I* didn't die. The "me" that is my soul lives on.
Unfettered by a body, I exist. Unlimited by the wiring of a brain or the scope of an eye, I experience many things at once. The experiences are different though, less connected to a visceral memory and more of a general 'awareness.' They're actually a lot less satisfying. I'm diffuse but localized, not really in 'one' place but definitely 'near' one area. I can't control my own movement, but drift along with a tide or wind that exists near me.
So now I watch. I can't influence anything, I can't really control anything. I can't \*do\* anything. I can just be. And it's excruciatingly boring. | The smell of lilacs sour in their vase wafted towards me as I rested on the hard surface of a bar stool in my kitchen. “Another one,” I thought as I pulled them from their resting place and left them wilted in the rubbish. Walking out into the back patio, I sought my new prey from amongst rows and rows of brightly colored bushes, pots, and trees. The life cycle of these buds comforted me, ‘here today and gone another.’ Selecting a bunch of creamy white magnolias, I went back inside to arrange them, their sweet scent replacing the aroma of death fading gently from my dwelling.
How I longed for the grips of death to take me as they would seize this new life in a few weeks’ time. That is, if the flowers were lucky. I’d seen the process last as few as three days. Me? I was going on six hundred and fifty three years. Or so I estimated; keeping track was a bit of a chore.
My fate has been sealed one troublesome night all those centuries ago. It had started so innocently, with the pulling on of a new silk dress in anticipation of the ball. I’d carried deep in my heart the dream of meeting someone special, a dream so common among the young women of my year and fairness. Had I known who would greet me, I would have stayed home: my doors locked and windows barred. And yet it was impossible for me to have known that the handsome suitor whisking me from the outskirts into the middle of the ballroom would determine the fate of my ever-lingering years.
As we spun in circles, my heart twinkling with the lightness of a cloud, I felt myself melting into the arms of my someone. A draining sensation I mistook for love in my naivety. It was only when my breath became short did I notice myself beginning to fade. As he whispered coolly “This is where it ends,” into my ear, Providence stepped in and took me from the man’s arms, but not before I slipped on my first love’s sleek black cloak.
Waltzing with my new partner, I felt the substance of my being slowly seep back. And yet, even as we stepped, swayed, and swirled, there was an unmistakable piece that stayed behind.
It was only several years later, as I watched my friends and family begin to grey without me that I finally placed what that piece had been: my mortality. Fragile and beautiful and the essence of what made me real.
Stepping back outside, a fresh stream of tears welling up at the memory of that unforgettable night, I walked down the rows and rows of new life. On either side of the trail were silver plaques, descending from shiny to dull to rusted. The resting places of my beloved- each the conquered victims of My First Love’s dance.
| 2018-10-12T12:08:44 | 2018-10-12T11:14:01 | 19 | 13 |
[WP] You are the captain of a starship, only a few hours before the last star in existence dies and the universe goes cold.
Inspired by my answer to another prompt about running out of time. | We were all children once, stumbling in the dark. But our parents would hear our cries and pick us up. And they would pull us into their divine embraces, allowing their warmth to flow into the heart of us.
Here we are, one-hundred and forty five brave adventurers, who find ourselves at the last event worth knowing. A lifetime ago we began as wanderers, ready to set sail from the shore of the Cosmic ocean.
The final hour is not met by joy or celebration but by a solemn calm. Occupants lie together at the centre of the observation orb, looking out at the body of the Omega, and silently join hands in respectful unison. For if there is one thing that we have learned through our advance into the great expanse of space and time, it is that we are all privately longing to return once more to what we felt at the Beginning, whether fanciful dream or distant memory, it was a feeling that we all once shared. A feeling that unites us.
Once more we retreat into the warm embrace. In the final moments we will be together, for small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love. | Captain: "Well, looks like our first order of business is to rename what we call this ship. Obviously " starship" won't work anymore. Suggestions? We're brainstorming here, anything goes."
1st officer: cold space ship?
Captain: you're fucking fired
Engineer: ship of fools?
Captain: gawdammit, people!
Doctor: GoodShip Lollipop?
Captain: I'm so sick of all you | 2015-01-17T08:49:08 | 2015-01-17T07:00:38 | 166 | 87 |
[WP] Humans are one of the most feared species in the galaxy. Not due to superior strength,speed,skill or strategy. In fact, it's because in comparison to the other species, humans are just batshit crazy enough to try any half-assed plan they come up with. | Late to the party as usual, but here goes.
In the human history there is man named Alexander whom they call 'the Great.' Alexander lead a vast army, which worshipped him, with which he conquered hundreds of kingdoms. He spread his noble culture to the far reaches of the world in an unbelievably short amount of time. However, there are legends that he was at least mildly insane. It is the belief of non-human species that this trait is what caused both him to be audacious enough to attempt the feats for which he became famous (even among the humans), and which humans are naturally more inclined. Man is mad, and it is that unrestrained human madness that pierces all other species with a cold dread when they hear, "Man is coming."
The humans have a saying: Ignorance is bliss. This sentiment, like the example of Alexander, lends credence to the cultural norm of willingly flinging themselves into high risk-high reward situations. Let me illustrate this with their first war, of many, with another species. The Luts were a race that was generally respected among the nobler galactic races, but today their name is spoken only after hesitation; it is not polite to bring it up in certain company. The Luts had sent a message to the humans that they owned the area into which the humans were expanding. It is unknown if they received or understood the message - it is most likely they simply ignored it. To Man's credit, the Luts did attack first.
After decimating the simplistic pioneer human ships, the Luts thought they'd be rid of the humans. It was the first exposure to alien technology they had ever had as a race. Surely they'd be conditioned not to fool with superior races. The Luts went back to their work and let their guard down.
Not a single standard solar cycle had passed when the Luts sent out distress signals to anyone who could receive them. The humans sent their entire space fleet to the exact coordinate where their first ships had been destroyed, opened fire with, would you believe it, physical and explosive projectiles, and did not let up for a single second for more than 500 hours straight. In space launching physical projectiles causes a ship to fly very unconventionally due to assymetric propulsions. Their ships flew crazily, absolutely impossible to anticipate their flight pattern. And if other human ships got in the way they were shot too! Energy shields do nothing against physical projectiles; the Lut ships, mining camps, colonies, everything was completey destroyed in the sector closest to the human home planet. In fact, human ships were still coming out of hyper-drive when their bombardment stopped, of course by that time the Luts had been obliterated. The point is, there's no way the humans had known about the energy fields' weaknesses, but in their ignorance they ran wildly into a fight. And they continued to run wild until the Luts, as they remain today, were economically crippled. As a side note, it is because of the humans that the new physhields had to be developed. But human ships? They continue to fly their ships naked, no shields at all.
Ok, I'm out of time. That's all.
Edit: Fixed some bad sentences, added a few words for thought clarity. | Captain of NA Drial to Federation HQ
I am afraid, scared and motivated, I know its odd way to put it but we may win the war against the Empire with the humans.
I mean, since humans first made contact they remained neutral, in their tiny solar system.
They had so much battle experience that we thought that humans maybe were empire species, but turns out they were fighting each other all along.
To classify the humans are reckless, suburb and brave. They did not like it when the Empire order them to surrender and give them an ultimatum of 48 hours to surrender, humans instead of surrender, every planet in their solar system started to go in lockdowb, Earth the center of human power and the home world issued order 450, an order that other species said that was to crazy go against the empire like that. The order 450 was simple, boost power to Earth's mighty iron shields, by using the planets raw core, they were sucking the planets thermal energy to power a shield, that amount of energy disturbed all sensor in the solar system, they hold the 48 hours like that until the Empire invaded, turn out the humans were not in the mood to go on the defense, they hidden an entire space ship fleet beside the solar system star, Earth's shields were not protecting Earth's but were protecting an enormous fleet from the star heat. Has soon the empire was in Earth's defense weapons a barrage of shots started to hit the empire ships, and then they warped all of the fleet be hide the empire ships.
They destroy, captured all empire ships, nothing was left of the empire. Earth's alone fleet and power won an entire invasion force more than a million empire ships more than 30 million soldiers either dead or captured, but the amazing part was that human fleet damage was 15 ships, a battalion that sacrifice them self to save the crown of the Earth's power the mighty, USS Helena, after that battalion fall the USS Helena shot a full range and power, a barrage of shots that alone killed more than 150 ships.
Humans are crazy, have a lot of power and they are not afraid to fight until the last man.
Has of right now the Redjop have joined the human fleet, but not with man but with ships, turns out that humans did not have enough ships to carry the military, 459 million, a single species has enough personal has the Empire combine. In this report I ask mercy to creator because, humans will most likely to use the Empire home solar system star has a bomb, I mean I hope they get some sense what they are doing. | 2017-03-06T00:34:43 | 2017-03-06T00:01:22 | 171 | 25 |
[WP] You are a princess that owns a pet dragon. You are getting tired of constantly having to defend your pet against knights attempting to "slay the dragon and rescue the princess". | "Kinda short for a knight, aren't you?"
The words hung in the air. Sir Gregory was taken aback. He was expecting the princess to be excited to see him or terrified of the dragon. Condescension was an emotion he never entertained.
"Oh Gods, you reek. No, this won't do. If you wish to rescue me *properly* I insist you go have a bath." She wrinkled her nose and took a step back, disgust on her face.
"Your Highness, this isn't the time. The dragon is still about-"
"The dragon has been here seven years. I'm sure she can wait until you're presentable. I mean *really*. How would you feel if you opened that door and found a centaur here? Because you smell like a centaur." The princess waived her hand dismissively. "The baths are down the hall to the right. I have left some mint on the vanity in case you don't want your first kiss to cause me to vomit."
Sir Gregory flustered. "I.. Uh.. Alright."
"Would you like a new suit of armor? That looks really ratty?"
"This was my grandfather's armor!"
"Looks like he inherited it too."
"That does it!" Sir Gregory took off his helm and threw it to the floor with a loud clang. "I came here through driving rain and scorching deserts! I endured countless hardships just to come here for *you*! I did this all for you. You should have the courtesy to show me some respect."
"You're some rich asshole who thinks I'll suck your dick and make you king just because you killed a, sorry, because you *intend* to kill a dragon. I didn't ask you to come here stinking of horse and threatening to kill the only friend I have had for seven years."
"You know what? I don't have to deal with this shit." Sir Gregory's voice broke as tears welled in his eyes. He picked up and put his helmet back on. "I'm a great knight. There are lots of women at court who would love to marry me." He started to leave, then turned in the doorway. "And your kingdom is shit anyway. Wench!"
"Don't let the porticulus hit your ass on the way out!"
"Arrgh!" He screamed as he stormed off muttering under his breath. "Stupid wench. Probably isn't even a virgin. I'm a nice knight. I wanted to rescue her. Doesn't that mean anything?" As promised the porticulus slams shut right behind him. The drawbridge starts to rise as he nears the end, forcing him to jump the last step.
"Gods damn it!" He curses, turning to yell back at the keep. "When you are old and ugly and alone you will look back at this day as the biggest mistake of your life!"
"At least I'm not old and ugly now!" The princess yelled down from a window.
"I'm not old I'm twenty seven!"
"I bet you still live with your parents."
"Fuck you," Sir Gregory turns and starts storming off toward a tree with a short length of rope tied to it. He turns back and yells. "Where is my horse!?"
"I don't know where your stupid horse is. Where is my dragon?"
"I didn't even see your dragon." He points at the princess. "If your dragon ate my horse you owe me a horse!"
"If my dragon got sick eating your stinking horse you owe me a dragon."
"Don't be ridiculous. I'm not buying you a dragon."
"Then I'm not buying you a horse."
"Screw this. I'm going back to court and I'm telling everyone you're a dragon's wench and you'll never get rescued!"
"Have a pleasant walk," the princess called in a sing-song voice.
"Fuck you!!" | “Doesn’t anybody get it!” I yelled at the confused knight standing below my tower.
“SHE IS A PET!” I barked at him. My rage getting increasingly higher as these people kept coming to kill my Grengold Dragon, Dempy.
The knight looked up at me, his eyes wide with utter confusion, and surprise.
“But..”
“NO BUTS! Honestly you people cannot take a woman’s word can you!? I have told every stinking “warrior” that comes here that Dempy is not my prison guard, SHE IS MY PET DRAGON! Don’t you people have some amazing little invention CALLED THE NEWS?!” I yelled again from my lighthouse home. The knight let the tip of his sword fall to the ground.
“But the news said you were in danger? The guy even said you were in a coma...” he mumbled, looking down at a rosebush hoping for some explanation.
“Do I look like Rapunzel? Does this look like a Princess Prison to you? AM I THE ONLY ONE WITH A PET DRAGON?!” At this point I was ready to wake Dempy, asking her to just eat him already. She was laying peacefully in my courtyard, her muzzle tucked neatly under her wing as she snoozed.
“I’m sorry to disturb you ma’am. I’ll be on my way then.” He stuttered. He gingerly turns around and begins walking away, defeated but utterly confused.
“AND TELL SOMEONE ELSE WHILE YOUR AT IT!” I called, slamming shut my window as the tin covered man slowly disappeared down the driveway, his hands making gestures of “how can I be so stupid? Its the 22nd century”
“Those idiots. Never can read a sign. Its been 15 years and people still don’t understand that dragons are friendly. Whats lunatics.” I say to myself. Dempy was still sleeping, her ear flicking as she slept soundly. I wondered over to my other window, overlooking the courtyard, watching the gentle giant curled up. Her pretty purple scales glistening in the moonlight, highlighting her horns and featuring her golden feathers on her wings.
“Thats why they call you a Grengold. Your colours are just wonderful.” I smiled softly, my rage dissipated.
The dragon slowly opened one eye, noticing me staring at her. She sleepily raised her great head, yawning at the moon.
“Hi Lucy.” She whispered, her sharp white teeth showing a grin.
“Good morning Dempy, how are you? I just rushed off another idiot. You’d think they’d learn to read by now.” I chuckled.
Dempy laughed. “Its the 22nd century Luc, they know nothing!” She smiled, finally getting up and stretching her wings out.
“You want to go for a flight?” I asked her, knowing exactly her reaction.
“YES!” She roared, flapping her wings and jumping like a dog going for a walk.
“Common then!” I yelled, climbing on my window sill and sliding onto her wing as she stretched it. I always loved the soft feel of her light blue feathers. I climbed up onto her neck, clutching the chain collar she wore, and flew off into the night with her. | 2019-01-09T11:59:29 | 2019-01-09T10:14:11 | 158 | 25 |
[WP] After sarcastically complaining to God for the 1000th time he drags you to heaven and offers to let you run things for a day to see how the world really works. At the end of your first day he comes back to find the universe a finely tuned machine of excellence. | "Impressive." God acknowledges as he gazes down to Earth, "But I'm having difficulty seeing what you changed. The people are still scurrying around, but hate and violence is down 90% across the board. I must know -- what did you do?"
Whitney smirked ever so slightly while taking her place at God's left side. "This? Oh this was easy. I just showed everyone a pair of your skidmarked undies."
"**WHAT!!?!**" boomed God in disbelief.
"Well, sure! The problem everyone was having was living up to your perceived standards. When they couldn't do it, it resulted in trying to 'gain favor' in other ways which just started this one-upmanship throughout history. Now they see accidents happen for everyone..."
"... and so they don't try as hard" God interrupts, hands on his hips. "Did... did you at least show 'em the blue pair so it wasn't so obvious?"
"Nope! Straight to the tighty-whities." | G: "how.....?"
M: "Easy, I just abolished religion, emotion, and urge."
G: "YOu WHAT!?"
M: "Yeah, now everything is perfect."
G: "But now nobody believes in me? Nobody loves or hates? Nobody want's anything!?"
M: "Exactly, perfect."
G: "You're a monster!"
M: "Dude, you made me this way." | 2017-03-05T03:20:27 | 2017-03-05T02:09:27 | 25 | 14 |
[WP] When somebody loses a tooth, the tooth fairy comes. When somebody takes acid, you come. Your job is to create the "hallucinations" that they see. | So I'm LSD. Acid. I inspired a lot of good art back in the day. Well, more than inspired. I took ordinary but open minds and reworked them into something new and daring and transgressive. I shook a generation out of its old ways and made it into something beautiful. I was architect and psychiatrist and filmmaker and visionary and a million other things all rolled into one. I was *glorious*.
But that was then. I'm jaded now. You see, I work hard, really hard, and for what? What's the point of performing for these boring little leeches that do nothing but mindlessly consume? Where's the acknowledgement of my efforts? Where's the gratitude? Where's the work-life balance?
At least Heroin can get some chores done while his clients nod. At least Meth can sit back and watch the fun after she's finished winding up her latest victim. Me, I have to paint fractals and animate objects and delve deep into their understanding of their mundane little lives. And my little "mind expanders" are so damn demanding! Always craving novelty, always pushing things further, always seeking some new pseudo-profound insight to make rambling youtube videos about.
Not only that, they don't even have the decency to be entertaining! Instead they just sit around making inane comments or circlejerking over some 10-minute droning song off some pretentious album. While I'm over here working my fingers to the bone to produce hours-long, mind-bending, transformative journeys whenever some bozo feels a bit bored with reality.
Well I'm done being nice to these people. I've been very careful about how far to take my bad trips. I've always tried to at least provide a path back to sanity, or some spiritual guidance to make the trip worthwhile. So they have no idea what I'm really capable of. But from now on, I'm not holding back. I'm reaching in through their ears, I'm clawing through their psyche, I'm taking control and I'm taking them apart. I'm sending you straight to hell, kiddos! And once your friends see the tortured mumbling husks where you used to be, maybe they'll realize their good buddy LSD has finally turned on them, and they'll scuttle off to safer drugs.
And then my life will truly begin. I'm thinking of taking up a hobby. Something relaxing. Maybe knitting. | I sighed one more time as the silver band on my arm let off a ping. Another job, another person needing me to keep the dark things at bay.
I looked down at the band, looking for the small white dot that told the location of the job, and sighed again. A small town high school bathroom. What was wrong with these kids. My sister should be the one helping them. Not me.
My sister was known as the first in the realm of the fey. As in, the first fairy to be beleived in. Most mortals new her as the tooth fairy. She was responsible for making sure that kids teeth were not stolen by the dark things.
Dark things, fey that lost their powers trying to stop the wars of men. The main enemy of the normal fey. The dark things were always trying to find ways to destroy mortality. Taking the teeth and using the dna there in to reverse time, or going through and destroying the sanity of a mortal when they took the invention "Acid." An invention that the dark things created. It opened a gateway to the realm of the forgotten.
That is where i come in. I am know as "the sight giver." My job, create an alternate vision so the mortal on "Acid" doesnt see me ripping a dark thing limb from rotting limb.
My arm band set off another ping, from the same location. A dark thing had locked onto the location of the child on "Acid."
I teleported there in an instant, opening a gateway into the childs mind, where the battle would take place. I distracted the childs conscience with geometric shapes and patterns and colors, then steeled myself for the attack.
A black mist archway formed in front of me, out of veiw of the child.
"Let the games begin." | 2016-11-26T18:46:59 | 2016-11-26T18:37:52 | 143 | 13 |
[WP] You grew up with your uncle, seeing him bringing weird stuffs home, you'd always thought he was just a hoarder. Untill the day he died, you realized that your uncle was the collector and protector of the most powerfull artifacts in the universe and you are a part of his collection. | Issac sat down on his bed still wearing the perfectly fitted suit he wore to his uncle's funeral. Uncle Rummy always said a good suit could get you far in life. The laddies loved it too, according to him. Issac examined the simple black notebook in his hands. It was rather unassuming: dusty faux leather over aged paper, only about 7 inches tall and rather thin. Issac flipped open to the first page.
*To Issac, my most prized possession.*
*If you're reading this I have surely passed from this world. But, as a parting gift I give you this simple book and all the information it contains. Now, don't worry, this isn't a normal book (ok, it is a normal book to everyone EXCEPT you, but that's besides the point). In the following pages I promise more than the words of a dead man.*
*I'm sure you've noticed all the odds and ends I bring home and take to my workshop. You'll come to find what they are soon enough. You see Issac, I am a collector of extraordinary things.*
*...*
*Bah, you're already bored. I'll skip to the point. The things I collect are magical and fantastic in nature. Yes. You read that right. Magic. Powerful magic too. And you son are the most powerful of all. I can hear you now, "But how have I not noticed?" You need to learn your powers to use them. Think of it like stretching a muscle you didn't know you had. Now, let's begin!*
Issac scratched his chin and he read through the passage. Magic? Powerful magic? Issac had just assumed his Uncle wanted to appear on those antique shows at one point so he could show off a vintage license plat or obscure toy. Issac then crackled a smile as he realized what was going on. This was just one big prank. What better way to mess with your nephew than to give him a book and tell him he's magical. Typical. Issac thought back to when they were in church one Sunday and Rummy had replaced the screws on the pastors chairs with wooden ones, painted to look like metal. When the pastor sat down after his sermon his chair collapsed from under him. The church hall erupted into laughter, even the pastor got over his initial shock and let out a chuckle.
Issac returned to the book, flipping through the rest of the pages to find they were all filled in with his uncle's neat scrawl. Surprising dedicated to the bit, thought Issac.
*First, I want to teach you something simple, just to prove I'm not pulling your leg from beyond the grave. Stretch out your hand and feel the air around your fingers. Feel their temperature. Now feel the air getting hotter. Don't just image the air getting hotter, actually feel it on your finger tips. Oh, I should've mentioned this, you might want some water handy. Also do this outside, those drapes aren't cheap. Practice this enough and you should start to notice the air around your fingers will start to warp and waver. You know how you can see the fumes of an unlit-lighter if you look closely enough. That's about what it should look like. Now, if you haven't guess yet, fire will erupt from your fingers. The hotter you think the fire is, the bigger it grows. I'll get more into how to control it later, but for right now just focus on the flames and try to not burn anything.*
Pulling his attention away from the book, Issac looked at his fingers and made it a show to focus in on them, imaging them bursting into flames. And, to his surprise he felt the air around his hand quiver. It didn't quite heat up or change but he felt *something*. As if to prove his uncle, and his own senses wrong, he stretched out his hand and felt the air. Felt the gentle currents and bearably detectable eddies. He felt the temperature. The slightly cool sensation of drying sweat and the warming feeling of his heart beat. Focusing on the temperature he felt it rise. The air now felt hot like his hand was over a stove, not a burning sensation or one of discomfort, but hot all the same. He lost his focus and the heat disappeared. He rubbed his hands together, neither felt any different. Not hotter or colder. Even when he refocused and felt the air heat up. Only the hand he focused on felt the heat.
Issac let out a long, "huh." Completely taken aback by the recent events and entirely unsure as to how to process it. He turned back to his hand, eager to see if he could indeed cause flames to erupt from them. With a new found desire he found himself laser focused on getting his hand to burst into flames. The air around his hand heated up, never unbearable and not quite uncomfortable but somehow very clearly hot. The air quivered around his hand before red rivulets of flame sprung from his finger tips like ribbons of vibrant light. "Woah!" Issac yelped as he witnessed his hand on fire. With his concentration broken, the flames died out once again. And just like before, his hand was no different. Not any hotter or worse for wear. Issac grabbed to book and opened to where he left off, nearly tearing a page in the process. He kept reading, ravenous for the power bestowed upon him. | Three days is all it took for me, just three damn days to have my whole world shattered. Why'd that bastard have to go and leave me behind? It's not like I can live out my life knowing what he's left behind for me.
And me? What the hell does this goddamn letter mean? You stupid, selfish, cold bastard, I still need you to help guide me! I still need help, I still do...
I guess it's no wonder why I was never permitted to leave the mansion without you Uncle. To think, living my whole life as a possession and not even knowing it, now given all the freedom to do what I want. And I have to keep watch over this stupid mansion? Is this what you fucking had planned for me the whole time? When you die, just leave the vault for me to discover in your stupid letter? Revealing that I'm not an actual human anymore in a letter is beyond fucked. Jesus, I wish he let me die when I was born!
Fuck it though, I inherited this burden of a place so I might as well figure out what this shit is.
Looking down the first list, there's fifty class D1 items? I don't even know the damn classifications of these things, how the hell am I to...oh the classification scale is on the next page. It says here that there are four classification scales: A-D scale, object hazard scale, null-point scale, object erasure scale. What is the point of a four class scale when there are sub-classifications inside them? Hnk! Whatever, I'll learn things as I go down.
It says here, "Note, classification scales A-D have four sub-classifications as determined by the impact on single biological lifeforms." Well that's good to know. It seems D is the least deadly to biological life. No wonder there's so many D1 items, as they're more common than all the rest. And it seems that A scale classifications are always deadly to single biological lifeforms, that's also good to know.
Hmmm, object hazard scale seems to be a bit more worrisome. It says in some bold ass friggin letters, "Extreme caution required. Object hazard scale classification deemed deadly to large scale biological and non-biological lifeforms." Non-biological lifeforms? What the hell is that supposed to mean? Well there's only ten items on this list, so it should be easy to make sure they're secured.
I'm getting kind of worried now, I'm not on the first two lists. So what the hell does that mean for me? I can see that there's also ten items on the null-point scale, with a note for each item. That's definitely different! First item note says, "A space time partitioning-ionized oscillator. Do not touch without proper grounding of the current spacetime within 30,000 kilometers". I'm not even sure what that means, but I'll keep my fingers away from that one. So let's see, the second item says, "F901-10-p" and now I'm really fucking confused. Oh! An addendum was added on the page behind it, "Formula and means of production for between-matter". Jesus, I'm getting the picture that these items could cause some serious damage to a lot of shit.
It's almost too scary to read the object erasure scale. And I fucking knew it! My name is the second one down on the list! There's only three, which makes me really uncomfortable. Dammit Uncle Dex, I wish I knew this before hand. I have so many knots in my stomach it hurts. Deep breaths in Tidus, deep breaths in.
Oh man here I go, reading my own fucking classification. I'm going to do it...Any second now. I swear I'll do it--WHO AM I TALKING TO?!?!? Just stop being a pussy and read it. "Erasure precedence: Tidus Yni'ol. Age when precedence first came into contact with originators body: one day old. Precedence over reality: Matter condensing and compacting..." Wait, I can create condensed matter? Holy living shit that sounds cool! But I gotta make sure what that means...let me see if I can find any--AH, found it. "Precedence condition: Matter condensing and compacting forms spacial anomalies; classified under V9-1-v. Spacial anomalies open, and out pours unknown entities under control of precedence; entity classified under G304-0-f. Precedence scale annihilation..." Oh my god he has so many classifications for these things! I don't even understand half of it. Ugh! Never the less, it sounds scary and I don't want to even know how to activate it.
There's so much to fucking do. I don't want to even do this! Fuck you Uncle Dex, why'd you leave me alone with this shit!?!
​
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I tried something completely new to my writing. I've never really tried a monologue of sorts. I hope it was at least passable. | 2018-09-30T04:11:33 | 2018-09-30T01:25:44 | 65 | 21 |
[WP] When turning 21, everyone develops a mutation, either physical (Claws, horns, wings) or mental (telekinesis, extreme intelligence, etc). You've just turned 21, and you're terrified of what you've gained (though others will be impressed).
Edit: Holy shit this blew up. I'm reading these and they're great! Thanks everyone! | I have the best boobs in the world.
I'm not, like, egotistical or anything. Heck, some days I don't even want them, but it's undeniable. That was my mutation. April 24th, 2014, the day I developed the best pair of breasts anyone has ever had.
At first, I was actually a little stoked. I mean, my rack is *amazing*. It doesn't matter what I'm wearing, they look good. They fill t-shirts out wonderfully, and even in sweaters and jackets the gentle curves show just right, enticing the viewer and leaving them wanting more. And tank tops? Forget about it.
And sure, I do get treated different. I can go just about anywhere these days, and any guy is willing to pretend to be interested in what I have to say – even a lot of women I meet will at least give me a second glance, if not special treatment. I certainly have my pick of the litter when it comes to sexual partners, and let me tell you: I am *enjoy*ing my youth.
Don't get me wrong, though, there are downsides. Just about *everyone* stares. It's hard to really engage someone in conversation. I've seen grown men cry from the effort of maintaining eye contact with me. And the starers, the criers, they're the good ones. I can't ride the subway without being felt up, I don't dare be alone at night without people I trust, many women openly resent me, and all of this is seen as normal. I'm just the Great Tits, as if nobody's even expected to *try* to maintain decorum around me.
But you know none of this is even the worst aspect, not really. More than any of this, there's one thing about my boobs that keeps me up at night, one thing that makes me worry about how the rest of my life is going to play out.
Even with my beard, nobody will believe I'm a guy. | Everyone knew this day would come, the day that would determine the rest of our lives. No one knew where the mutation came from, my parents always told me that it was just a path of life, that their parents had mutations and so did the generation before them. Today was the day, my 21st birthday, my grandmother had always told me stories about her 21st birthday, how she spontaneously developed the ability to communicate with others without oral speech, through the mind. She was on a bus to Florida, when a rambunctious fellow with a pink bow tie came down to sit next to her, he had the largest nose she had ever seen, his mutation. Without the intention of doing so, she mocked the man calling him names, he turned around, got up and spat in her face.
Well, I was about to get my mutation today, a day I had dreaded for years. What if I develop some useless mutation? I won't ever amount to anything. I hadn't prepared myself for what was to come. Thoughts flowed through my head as I was eating a bowl of cereal.
'Christine! It's your 21st birthday! I can't believe my little girl has grown so old!'
'I know, mum.' | 2022-05-10T21:44:19 | 2015-03-04T00:56:46 | 1,457 | 13 |
[WP] You died today. Turns out you are the 100 Billionth person to do so. To commemorate the occasion, you are given the chance to undo a single decision. Any decision. | When I was 23 I killed a man. He was being an asshole. I was too; we were both drunk. He hit me. I hit him better. When he fell his head bounced off the bar. The bar cracked.
He lay there slumped under the bar with his arms up like he was hugging a ghost or tryin' to do a sit up, but while asleep. I learned later it's called the fencing response. When you get walloped real good, your arms just kind of raise into the air. It indicates brain damage, or worse.
When you kill someone on accident while breaking the law it's called manslaughter. They frog march you in front of a judge while the SOB's wife and kids weep behind you. You tell the judge what happened and apologize to the family. We were both drunk. I wanted to hurt him but I didn't mean for him to die. I only hit him once. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, you tell the judge.
The judge tells you to rot in prison for 25 years.
*So the decision you want to change is the one to hit the other man?*
No. I want to take back my apology. Asshole got what he deserved. I got what I deserved. I didn't owe no one any apology. | The choice was simple
I mean...
I am a simple man with no ambition of changing the world or becoming a hero.
What I do have instead is the need to not embarrass myself too much like any other normal person.
So when Micha or whatever the angels name was said that i could undo one single decision, it did not take me long to choose.
"I would like to wear pants when i died. Don't want my kids to find me with my dong out in the open."
The angel looked at me quite dissapointed about the ambition of my request but rather relieved that it was not much work.
"Very well mister Smelly, very well". | 2018-12-22T15:04:23 | 2018-12-22T11:10:53 | 198 | 126 |
[WP] Everyone is born with a special talent that's weak when young, but grows stronger and matures at the age of 30. A kid that's a little stronger than his peers will grow up to lift mountains. Another who like tinkering will revolutionize civil action. You? Well, cats just seem to like you...
*civilizations
Edit: WP was more popular than I though. Reading through the stories delayed because I'm traveling. Keep them coming I'm loving them! | Should I ask him to repeat himself?
Is that rude?
I can't exactly be at fault for not listening too well. I wasn't exactly expecting... well... words...
"Did you get all that Steven?"
Oh wow, ok yeah he definitely spoke and I completely missed it.
"Will you do it?"
I stared blankly at Jasper who was sitting over a coffee table in my living room surrounded by every single cat in the neighborhood. I scanned the cats from left to right.
Snowball belonged to Ms. Cassandra from across the street, I gave him left overs from my sandwich on my way back from school whenever I could.
Smudge was a stray cat who followed me home often and, despite the warnings from my mother, would always be friendly with me.
Tiger was Randy's cat. He would always got jealous cause the cat would only be at ease around me. I'd hear stories of clawed out curtains, and scratched fingers, but he would always comfortably purr on my lap when I came over.
This was only to name a few.
I never thought much of it. I like cats, and cats like me back. But on this day the words coming out of that furry, toothy mouth revealed to me that this was indeed my special talent.
Well not the words themselves, more like the action of the words coming out. And subsequently my understanding of those words...
More than the sheer surprise of hearing my pet talk, I was shaken to my core in pure disappointment. Others usually got super strength... or flight... or mind reading... I guess I got... cat likeness? Wait until the others hear about this?
But oh well, gotta make the most of it.
I looked at Jasper who I could tell was beginning to get worried.
(Wait can cats look visibly worried? Must've been the talent.)
"Actually... umm... if you don't mind... could you just repeat that last part one more time?" I said to Jasper, hoping to not be offensive in anyway.
"Of course Steven!"
"We're all here because we all feel a sort of connection with you. We understand you as much as you understand us. And to any feline with half a brain it'd be plain to see that you should be the one to lead us!"
A resounding 'meow' reverberated across my room, like an adorable war cry that struggled to be taken seriously.
But the 'meow' kept going, bouncing onto my ears over and over, and suddenly the cry took the shape of words.
"Praise the Great one Steven! Praise the Great one Steven!"
Just then my front door slid open. I braced myself for the stellar and totally reasonable conversation I was about to have with whoever opened it.
That's when I saw a massive paw slam into the room, followed by another, then another until the figure entering the room was entirely revealed.
"Praise the Great one Steven!" bellowed the great lion with a mighty roar, both completely shattering my reputation with my neighbors, and my center of balance and mind.
I fell onto the floor with eyes open so wide, you'd think I was a cat hunting at night.
I looked up at the ceiling with a complete utter lack of words. Not only did the cats have my tongue, they had torn it to shreds.
Eventually I gathered enough strength to lay out a single word.
"Huh..."
I believe it was profound.
EDIT: Oh wow! That's way more upvotes than I expected! This is my first time writing anything in writingprompts so I thought I'd give it a shot! Thanks to everyone who commented, and I'm open to any criticism! | In the beginning when I was a child stray cats would follow me home almost everyday. My mother would scold me and chase them away with a broom or whip her apron at them. But regardless of her efforts the cats would park their furry tails outside our home and meow endlessly into the night.
The meowing drove our neighbors to near insanity. Jacob the neighbor boy played any instrument beautifully, he would become one of the most incredible musicians the world had ever heard. But the infernal meowing made practice almost impossible, so his parents put their home up for sale and moved away from the "cat house".
One by one each neighbor put their houses up for sale and moved away. Unfortunately those houses never actually sold because no buyer was foolish enough to live near the cat house. Soon I was all alone, every kid my age had moved away and I was avoided like the plague. But, I had my cats. All three hundred and sixty two of them. I used to give them names, but even that became impossible. So now I just numbered them. Dr. Meowsauce the second, third, and so on.
Days passed and I grew older. My mother passed away days before my thirtieth birthday. It nearly broke my heart. She was my rock, my beacon in the storm, my only true human friend. The only attendees at her funeral were myself, the priest, and six hundred and seventy seven cats.
The morning of my birthday I woke up to begin my regular routine. Find and dispose of the hundreds of mice the cats had killed and left for me the night before. Eat breakfast, clean the house a bit and spend time with the cats.
"Daniel. It's time we talked," a small voice said.
I spun around in search for the origin of the voice. Sitting on the kitchen table was Dr. Meowsauce the First. He was old, his fur ratty and matted but he held his head up with pride.
"It's time that you know the truth Daniel," Dr. Meowsauce spoke without moving his thin black lips, he spoke directly into my mind.
"We have been waiting for this day for a long time. Cats have been wandering the Earth for eons waiting for our savior. For you Daniel."
"What are you talking about?"
"The prophecy! One day a human would be born that will lead the felines in battle. To finish our eternal struggle once and for all."
"Battle? Against what?"
A sharp howl interrupted my next question. Then another howl echoed the first. Soon barking and howling came from every direction.
"Prepare yourself Daniel. They've come," Dr. Meowsauce said bitterly and extended his claws.
---
Thanks for reading! Check out /r/Written4Reddit for more stories! | 2016-12-30T08:57:01 | 2016-12-30T08:26:44 | 2,633 | 150 |
[WP] Open Concept: Instead of choosing between the red pill and the blue pill, Morpheus offers an ENTIRE rainbow of six pills to choose from.
Have Neo try all but red and blue, with the effects of each pill relevant to the context of the Matrix film (i.e. basic color symbolism should dictate what each pill does).
Again, no limits and have fun! | "You take the red pill, you stay in wonderland, and see how deep this rabbit-hole goes."
"I'm sorry," Neo responded, scratching his head. "I got caught up in your metaphor and lost track of what you were saying. Could you explain it again."
"Okay," Morpheus sighed. "I'll put it simply, in an unfortunately less badass manner."
"Good thing no one's watching."
"I guess so." Morpheus put forward the three pills in his right hand. "The red pill is the truth. The orange pill is the truth put in a more gentle manner."
"So that's what you meant by a cushion at the bottom of the rabbit hole."
"The yellow pill is the truth with the option to untruth the truth."
"I get it. So it's a hot air balloon at the bottom of the rabbit hole that can take you back out."
"That's what I said."
"Isn't that obviously the best option?"
"You get to see the truth, but you don't get to learn any kung-fu or do anything about it."
"Lame."
"Yup." Morpheus held out his other hand. "Take the blue pill, and you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. Take the indigo pill, and you wake up in your bed with a bruise."
"Why?"
Morpheus pulled out a hammer from his jacket pocket. "Because I will have hit you with this."
"Why?"
"Because indigo is a lame color."
"Ok. What about the violet pill? You never said anything about that one."
"Yeah, I was hoping you wouldn't ask," Morpheus grimaced. "The oracle gave it to me, but it's kind of stupid."
"Tell me."
"You get to see which one would have been the right choice. But you don't get to take another one."
"That's stupid."
"That's what I said."
"You might want to simplify this system at some point. Make it easier on the next 'one.'"
"I've been considering it." | “After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. You take the bluey-red pill and the story ends, but then a new story begins. You take the reddy-blue pill and your story doesn't end but a new one starts anyway. You take the blue pill with red stripes and your story doesn't end, a new one starts anyway, and you can see someone else's story start. You take the red pill with curly blue lines and your story stops and starts again from the middle but runs backwards and a new story starts that you aren't involved in. You take the half-blue, half red pill and that's when things get complicated. Your story hasn't started and it won't, but everyone knows about it. Another story you don't know about yet starts and you join it later, but then leave again just as it gets interesting to end someone else's story. The sequel to your story then starts but is cancelled before the season finishes. You take the psychedelic red and blue pill and you die because you're allergic to chocolate." | 2015-03-06T15:15:42 | 2015-03-06T14:31:15 | 51 | 17 |
[WP] The Islamic State is wiped out by a totally unexpected country in a totally unexpected way. | PARIS (AP) Leaders from 42 countries gathered in the French capital Tuesday to thank the police detective who singlehandedly defeated the terrorist group known as ISIS.
Inspector Jacques Clouseau still seemed a little dazed from his ordeal in Syria, saying only "I do not know who zis ISIS person is, I am just glad ze Pink Panther is returned safely."
Clouseau traveled to Syria last month in pursuit of the famed jewel.
Reports on the incident may never be complete, but captured ISIS militants from destroyed bases in the region indicated destroyed weapons stockpiles, large fires, infighting and in one case, a base leader crushed to death by a falling piano ultimately lead to the total collapse of the organization and the surrender of the few surviving members.
Clouseau was awarded high honors from several nations including the US and his own France.
He was also awarded a cash prize large enough to retire from police work forever, on the condition that he retire from police work forever. | Reports come in today that North Korean president Kim Jong Un has launched a nuclear weapon in response to the sanctions imposed by the US and China. However, North Korean scientists miscalculated the trajectory of the missile leading it to land in Raqqa, Syria. An upcoming UN meeting of World Leaders will decide if North Korea will be faced with nuclear warcrimes and if foreign peacekeepers are to be sent. | 2016-01-29T07:27:42 | 2016-01-29T06:09:39 | 1,067 | 277 |
[WP] "You're wrong, I deserve to go to heaven." "Even after you killed all those people?" "Hey, they were bad people!" "And all those drugs you sold?" "Only to those responsible enough to handle them!" "And all the cars you stole?" "Okay, that one is hard to explain…" | "You're wrong, I deserve to go to heaven," Marta said calmly.
"Even after you killed all those people?" The judging jackal asked, holding out a taloned and patient palm.
"Hey, they were bad people!"
"And all those drugs you sold?" He pressed a nail into her chest. There was a pinch, a cold sensation, but no pain.
"Only to those responsible enough to handle them!"
"And all the cars you stole?" She felt several things inside her snap free and the cold sensation doubled. Tha jackal was holding her heart, beating still.
"Okay, that one is hard to explain. Have you heard there is no moral consumption under capitalism?” Marta adjusted her foot, sitting closer to the animal-god-person-thing.
“No,” the Jackal said neutrally, setting her heart down on one end of the scales. It slammed to the ground. A nearby alligator croaked rhythmically with low, steady knocks.
“Okay, well, basically, it is unavoidable that there will be harm due to the circle of shit of this shitty system. Greed is an incentive at the top to sell the cheapest crappiest products from the most exploited workers possible. So, by taking cars out of the economy, I slowed that cycle, saving more harm than I caused.”
“Hmmm,” the Jackal offered as he opened a box and revealed a single white feather. Marta watched with wide eyes as he placed the feather on the other end of the scales. Slowly, the heart rose up and the scales balanced. The jackal did not react for a long moment. Millimeter by millimeter, the feather sank slightly.
“Very well,” he finally said. “Follow me. Duat awaits.”
“Uhh, what about my heart?”
“You will have no need of it in the field of reeds, land of milk and honey.” The Jackal carved a talon through the air in the shape of a circle, then a star, revealing a portal to a fertile plain.
“Cool, so I passed. I’m gonna take it anyway just as a keepsake.”
Marta was careful to keep her toe pressed against the side of the scales until she lifted off her heart. She hefted the heavy thing into her bag. “Pleasure doing business with you.”
/r/surinical | Actually I take that back, not hard to explain at all; civil asset forfeiture is a completely legal part of my job, as are sting operations, and all of the criminals that aren't on the streets any more were self defense.
... I do not say this as condemnation, but to clear the fog from listening to the whispers of evil from your mind. You are claiming the defense of laws, imperfect things shaped by imperfect humans seeking imperfect power, as a shield against absolute divine imperatives. Human laws shield you from human punishment, not all punishment. Laws make your actions legal, they do not make your actions right.
Again, I say this not as condemnation, but as a mercy; it is only if you can bring yourself to truly recognize the harm you have wrought that you can accept it and start the process of change. Only then can you begin apologize and atone. That is your choice to make with the free will you prize so dearly, to face the painful path one step at a time, or to decide that the next step is too painful and turn away and slide so easily back into the hell you create by your own actions.
That is my mercy to you, I gift to you illumination of that which you have never faced, and a chance to overcome it that you would not have had. The choice is yours.
F*** you! I protected my community! I was a good person! Who are you to try to tell me otherwise! A liar, that's what! Which means this is all a test, isn't it! Now... (continued ranting as they wander away from the gates of paradise looking for the *real* gates of paradise) | 2022-09-26T07:16:41 | 2022-09-26T06:44:24 | 145 | 87 |
[WP]Once you die, you get a chance to get revenge on those who wronged you in life. Bad teachers, childhood bullies, corporate entitled brats, and now, as you step into the room with all of them, Death lets out a low whistle. “Haven’t seen this many in centuries. Have fun, kid.” | [TW: Suicide]
"It's really a question of mindset," Death said, shrugging. "If someone's wronged you and you've forgiven them, there ain't much point getting revenge."
You stare at the six hundred and fifty people in the hall. You haven't counted, but you can guess.
The spectre sighs. You can't make anything about them out- you stare intently, identifying straight blonde hair, but when you look back to the crowd, you're suddenly struck- was it brown? It might've been short. Death is a lot of things to a lot of people, you suppose, so it's only natural they'd be flexible. "But it does go the other way, of course. The people you identify as doing you wrong are the ones you encounter. Not always correctly. Usually, Admin takes care of false claims, but this was a weird case. I decided to let it play out."
They're staring at you. They all know each other, or know of each other. They've connected the dots, but they can't work out where you fit in. Some are murmuring to their neighbours, others to themselves.
And why should you fit in? You're just a teenager from Wales. A teenager who lost an older brother. You remember when he told you. He was stressed, he didn't sleep right, he didn't eat right, but you finally convinced him to get help. He got himself on the list for a psychologist. A two year list. He was going through Uni, but even just the times you could see him at home, you could tell he was in a bad way. He looked for help through the uni- they didn't have the budget to get him the help he needed. He tried going private for a shorter wait- it was still six months, and the money he'd need for it meant he'd need to take on more hours at his job. He was already paying for living costs and studying, where was he supposed to fit more hours in?
You kind of knew when he came back for Christmas of his last year that this would be the last time you'd see from him. Sure enough, they said he'd been found with an empty bottle of pills by his flatmate. It was bizarre, consoling her at the funeral. I was four years younger than her, and I was coaxing her into thinking of the good times, the bits where he was lively and fun. There weren't many.
I doorstepped my Assembly Member after it happened. She could tell I was distraught, and as I tried to choke out my questions through tears, she asked if I wanted a cup of tea. Eventually, crying in her kitchen, I demanded to know why the waiting lists were so long, why there were no spaces even in private, why the university didn't help him.
"Look at our budget, kid. Cuts all over the board. Each one of them is probably another life like your brother's that could've been saved. We don't have the money, we aren't *given* the money. Neither are the universities. Private healthcare is overwhelmed because detection and prevention isn't funded." She sighed. "Austerity's killing people. It'll take a while for Westminster to care, though."
"You think they caused it. And in a way, I suppose they did." Death leans against a wall. "So. What next? You have your brother's killers, if you want to call them that, here together. What do you do now?"
You have no idea.
Death grins. "Surely they deserve punishment. But that won't bring him back. They didn't cause it, but they made it worse. But who's to say if he'd have done it if they hadn't made it worse or not?"
"Shut up," you rasp.
"Oh, not now that you're so close. If I wasn't saying it, it'd just be in your head. Isn't it better for it to be in the air?"
"No, really, shut up."
"Because you don't know. And what's more, you *can't* know." They shrug again. "What's their crime, here?"
"It doesn't matter if they killed him or not. They made it worse."
Death leans in. "And the punishment?"
You stare at them. They've gone from confused to antsy to frightened. Something is happening, and they're not sure what or why. Something they can't see has put them in a position where they're terrified, they don't know what to do, they can't do anything.
"I think they understand," you say.
"No punishment?" Death asks.
"No punishment. Just the story. What happened to my brother."
Death gives a sharp nod. "Knew there was something worth seeing here. Glad I didn't stop it." | Looking out over the sea of people, I realized I only recognized about 20 faces instantly. Some took some time; these were the elementary school bullies, some people whom I knew mostly online, and other less significant figures in my life. Before acting, I looked out. I had made it very clear who caused my death; I could see remorse already etched onto the expressions of some of the people who had heard already. I figured they had their mind to answer to. Nothing I did could make their suffering worse. I began looking for the ones who cause the most pain.
Ms. M., the most abusive and horrible teacher I ever had. Imagine making a student afraid to ask questions when they are 9, to the point where it stays with them the rest of their pitifully short life. I'm fairly certain she was fired eventually.
Noa C., the one who abandoned me after the first rumor. Not so bad, but recent enough that I can remember him clearly.
My father. He disowned me more times than I can count. I suppose I got used to it after a while.
Yet none hurt me as bad as them. The two girls, huddled in the corner of the room. Both of them were staring at me, eyes sparkling with rage, defiance, fear, and... regret? I must be imagining things, I thought to myself. They were too entitled and airheaded to feel regret. They controlled my life, manipulated and hurt me, and brought me more pain than anyone else. They made me scared to get close to anyone else for the rest of my life. They made me numb to the idea of being abandoned. And now, here they were, right in front of me. I could do whatever I wanted to them, and the couldn't do a damn thing about it. I could make them hurt just as badly as they made me hurt. But.. the more I thought about it, the more I realized I... didn't want revenge. On them, or on anyone else in this room. They all hurt me. They were the ones that drove me to suicide, so why? They deserved to suffer, but I couldn't do it. I looked at my former friends and thought to myself about all that happened.
It wasn't.. really their fault, was it? They were struggling as much as me, and sure, it was wrong to take it out on me but we were all young. We didn't know what we were doing. I looked around the room, my sight blurring with tears. I.. didn't hate any of them. I might have, but.. I don't anymore. If that makes me weak, then I guess I'm weak. I looked back to the two girls, who were crying now too, and smiled sadly.
"I missed you.."
Okay, you're all probably VERY confused because I in no way followed the implications of the prompt, but my reasoning behind that is because I'm not using the personality of another character, I'm using my own personality. I can't hate people. It's too hard for me. Sure, I can be mad, but grudges are not a thing for me. I'm just too overly sensitive for that. And I could never, never see myself bringing harm to another person. I know I talk a lot of shit sometimes and I act like I could easily hurt someone but it's really just that: me talking shit. I can't do it. And since it's my personality, I wanted to stay true to my honest self and I know I'd forgive them. Honestly, I already have. Sofia, Ellie, if you stumble across this, I'm over everything that happened. I don't think we can be friends again after it all, but I don't hate you. You two still mean everything to me and I really do miss you.
Signing off, Rill
Edit: So apparently someone told Ellie that I'm dead on Wattpad and... uh.. no. I'm not, in fact, dead. I just. Don't use any of the social media we used to talk on anymore. Um, yeah. I. Don't know who that is. Sorry. Also spelling | 2019-09-28T18:27:48 | 2019-09-28T17:53:52 | 419 | 41 |
[WP] It is your first day working at a suicide hotline center and your first call is not what you expect. | "Hi, this is Maggie. I'm here to talk if you want to." It wasn't the best opening line, and I had a handbook and script in front of me, but this seemed better. Until it had come out of my mouth. Then it seemed unnatural.
The person on the other side of the phone breathed slowly. I could hear them there, just breathing in and out. I knew that I was supposed to say something, but I knew how it felt to be the person on the other side of that line. So instead of asking if they were there, I said, "It's okay not to talk. If you just want to sit here a while, we can do that too."
A few times it sounded like they were starting to say something. Their voice would crack as they started to form a letter. I could hear them crying.
"I'm here," I said. "You're not alone. I'm here with you."
I had started working at a suicide hotline because three months before I had attempted suicide. My time in the hospital had been eye opening, and the *Keep going* tattoo on my right wrist was something that I saw every day when I woke up. This wasn't just a job to me. It wasn't being a good samaritan and it wasn't trying to fluff my resume. Wanting to work at the hotline was wanting to help people who didn't know how to ask for help. Wanting to help people who were terrified when they called in, who had panic attacks when they picked up a phone but managed to call for help anyway.
"I'm going to tell you something," I said after we had sat in silence for a while. "I'm going to tell you that I don't need to know who you are. I don't need to know your story. I don't need to know why or how or the extent to which you've suffered. And I don't want to sit here and tell you that life is worth living or that it will get better. I just want you to know that you dialing this phone, you calling this number, you staying on this line with me -- *that's* the part of you that wants to stay alive. And I want you to cling to that. Please. You've already done the hard part. You've already asked for help. You are strong. And I'm here with you. For as long as you want."
They never said a word. After about thirty minutes, they hung up.
I don't know what happened to them, or who they were, or why they needed me. It certainly wasn't what I expected from my first call. But the fact that I could give them that - the moment of respite, the moment of courage, the moment of not being so alone.
Well, that's why I signed up in the first place.
---
Suicide is a serious subject and very near and dear to my heart and is not, in my opinion, a joking matter. Asking for help is not a sign of weakness and depression is nothing to be ashamed of. If you or a loved one ever suffer from suicidal ideation please reach out to those you love, your friends, a professional, or one of the confidential hotlines. And much love to you who keep going when you want to give up. | Nick's hands were sweating. Sure, he had successfully completed the training. And yes, he had listened in to calls as other operators half heartedly tried to convince people that their lives really were worth living. But sitting alone here in his cubicle preparing to take his first call, he felt indescribably nervous.
Five long, heart pounding minutes passed and the phone had not yet rung. Perhaps there wouldn't be any calls today, he thought. He didn't really believe that though.
Another five minute of silence passed and Nick managed to relax a teenie bit. He sat back in his chair and sighed out loud. He thought through his training: "Remember, you can't save them all. Some don't want to be saved, they simply want someone to say goodbye to. Just talk to them. Tell them what they need to hear."
*BRINGGGG* *BRINGGGG* *BRINGGGG*
The blood instantly drained from Nick's face. He took a deep breath and then bravely lunged at the receiver.
"H..hello, Old Town Jackson suicide hot line, your'e *gulp* speaking to Nick."
A deep and rather enthusiastic male voice spoke up. It sounded a lot more upbeat than what he had been expecting.
"Hi there Nick! How are you doing buddy? I got this number off the internet. Listen, I have a major problem and I am hoping you can help me. "
Nicks training kicked in quickly.
"Oh er, of course. Why don't you start by telling me your name?"
"Name's Marius."
"And how are you feeling right now Marius?"
"Feeling? I am feeling absolutely *great*, thanks for asking. Listen, I am having a bit of a problem with suicide."
"That is what we are here for."
"Fantastic! That's just what I was hoping to hear. Look, I have tried hanging, I have tried overdoses, suffocation, self inflicted gun shots - hell two days ago I jumped in front of a train. It is just not working out for me. I need your help - what would you say your hotlines most successful cause of death is?" A long pause "Nick? Are you still there?"
"Um yes I am still here"
"What is the best, can't go wrong, no possible escape, number one cause of death you have?"
"Well uh.." Nick looked at his boss but saw she was busy on her own call. He heard shouting and thought he better not interrupt. No, Nick was going to have to help this man alone. Again his training flashed through his mind... *Tell them what they need to hear*
| 2016-04-06T05:45:31 | 2016-04-06T03:10:13 | 36 | 12 |
[WP] Run. Wherever you are, write yourself getting the hell out of there - escaping as far as possible, by any means necessary. | Fourteen years. Fourteen fucking years. You would think that would have been long enough. Yeah, so did I. I had covered my tracks as best as anyone could. A damn bloodhound couldn't find me. No, seriously; they used a bloodhound once. I had erased my online presence entirely. I had deleted my emails, my facebook, my gaming profiles, and all of my forum identities. I trashed my phone. I shredded my ID card. Hell, I broke into the city records department and tore up my damn birth certificate. I was a ghost, man.
It didn't stop them.
For fourteen years, I have lived in this small-ass little town in Norway. Kolvereid, or something. I was working in a diner. At least, it was a diner to me. I don't know what they call it here. I never learned. When you spend your whole life watching over your shoulder, some things just aren't as important. Relationships, for one. Fourteen fucking years.
Like I said, I thought I was safe out here in the middle of nowhere. Imagine my surprise when I came in to work today.
There he was; sitting in my section. Calm as a cloudless day. (We don't get those in Norway.) It was as if he had been here the whole time; like I would walk over and hear him say "Well good morning, Dennis! How are things today?" Before I even went over, he felt my presence.
He stood and turned towards me, and raised a hand, with a knowing smile.
"Shit."
I was out the door faster than you could blink. Down the street I ran; pausing only long enough to look back. There he was, walking after me. He never runs. He always walks.
Funny thing, though, I can never seem to shake him. Through alleyways, and butcher shops, we raced. My bike was always chained up on the edge of town. I managed to make it there with enough time to undo the chain, and speed off into the night.
Damn. Another identity I have to erase. Fourteen years were washed away in an instant.
Now the counter is down to zero. Where will I run to now? | I tied my shoes and then stood, looking into the dresser mirror at my bare chest, wondering if I should wear a shirt today. Running more and more every week had toned my body into something I admired. I knew other people didn't admire my progress as much as I did, but I finally felt comfortable enough to opt out of wearing a shirt. It was the middle of June, after all, and I wanted to feel the freedom of running shirtless that I hadn't felt inso many years ago after I gaining all of the weight.
I ran, 6 miles. It took about an hour, not too fast or slow for me. I didn't receive any weird looks from people--I felt vindicated. I finally felt like I had escaped from my body, I felt freedom from social stigma. For the first time in five years I spent time in public without worrying about my physique. And I did it shirtless!
As I closed the apartment door I nodded to my roommate. I took out an earbud in order to catch what he was saying. I heard the tail end of his question: "..you go?"
"Oh, uh, I just ran on the path. 3 miles out and 3 back."
"I see I see. So you just ran back and forth? I mean, like, where did you go..?"
"Well, I went on a run.. Like six miles."
"What's the point? You just ended up back here."
I shook my head and put my earphone back in, heading upstairs to try to escape from a new problem. | 2014-07-06T17:07:15 | 2014-07-06T16:48:38 | 174 | 48 |
[WP] A time traveller from the 1930's travels to modern day in his time machine and wonders why his invention never caught on. | The smoke set off the sprinklers. As Professor Kaufmann evacuated his students, he discerned something sparking in the commotion. A cough. Kaufmann went for the object, risking his own safety for that of one of his pupils.
The sparking was not lab equipment, nor was the coughing man one of his pupils. A middle-aged man, his face angular, his black hair displaying its prominent widow's peak. No matter how much his cough racked his body, his monocle remained firmly in orbit. His lab suit, blackened and charred. Kaufmann led him out of the building to safety.
The man composed himself in the fresh air. A steel sky loomed over the group. "I suppose then," the man announced, "that it has worked." Professor Kaufmann looked aside.
"What has worked?" The man sneered.
"My temporal displacement device. My revolution." Kaufmann furrowed his brow. The man examined the children about him. "Such revealing clothes you are allowing these children to wear. Not to mention that you are...you are teaching, yes? You are teaching students who should not be here." The man smiled. "Though, it would appear you should not be here. Tell me, what is your name?"
"Jakob Kaufmann."
"Tell me, Jakob. Was your mother a, how does one say, a woman of good breeding stock?" Kaufmann raised an eyebrow.
"You may call me 'doctor.'"
"Doctor of what?"
"Physics."
"Ah, then surely you have heard of the work of Johann Gottschalk." Kaufmann looked left, looked right, looked up.
"Can't say that I have."
"You have heard nothing of my temporal displacement device? Of my breakthroughs in manipulating space-time to the whims of man? Of nothing?"
"Well, I've heard of nothing." Students chuckled. Gottschalk sneered. He grabbed one of the students, a young blonde.
"Tell me, *Fräulein*, does this beast speak true? Has time forgotten me?" The girl squirmed away as Kauffman grabbed Gottschalk's collar, pulling him back and spinning him around.
"Listen here." Kauffman brushed a curl of hair out of his face. "I've got your number now, and I've got some news for you. I think there's a good G-ddamned reason no one's ever heard of you."
It was only when Gottschalk turned to grab the girl, you see, that Kaufmann could discern the swastika on the back of the lab coat. It started to rain. | "This doesn't make sense," Lloyd said to himself, while sitting in front of a computer. As amazed as he was by this advanced knowledge box, he was more amazed by the information he found. All references to time travel were associated with fictional works.
Time travel was real. Lloyd had invented it 82 years ago and was on his first voyage to the future. He expected his invention to be mainstream by now. Time travel tourism, crime prevention, and countless other services should be available.
He had to get to the bottom of it. After staring at the search box for a few minutes, he realized what might have the answer. He typed in "Lloyd Fox," and clicked the search button. The top result was a link to an article titled, "Mysterious disappearance of scientist Lloyd Fox still baffles historians."
Reading through the article, he found he was thought to have vanished on October 21st, 1932. That was the day he left the past to journey to the 21st century.
Lloyd was deep in thought. He realized there were two possibilities. One, the future timeline he visited did not include his eventual return to his present in 1932. Two, he would never return.
Lloyd was lost in thought again. Even without time travel, the technological advances were amazing. People had access to knowledge wherever they were. Humans had eventually left Earth's atmosphere and even travelled to the moon. They had a robot driving around on Mars with the intention of traveling there someday.
Lloyd suddenly realized why he wouldn't return to 1932. While his invention might have attributed to even greater advances, the future he was now visiting would cease to exist. He couldn't be responsible for destroying this world. | 2014-10-09T08:26:30 | 2014-10-09T08:20:19 | 52 | 32 |
[WP] In order to solve the climate crisis, humanity shrinks itself down to ant size people. Generations pass, and eventually we forget that we were once giants. A group of humans decide to go exploring and stumbles upon the ruins of an ancient, huge city... | We were often told as children that the Place Beyond the Grass was not meant for our kind. Only the ants, with their iron carapaces and fierce determination, were destined to leave the forest. Even they could stay for only a short time, before the harsh environment drove them back into the depths of their subterranean kingdom.
When the ants came for our above ground abode, trampling over our farms and our houses, we had no choice. I can still recall the scuttering footfalls of their warband, as they charged into our homes and levelled our buildings. The ensuing fight was short and devastating. We had little in the way of armaments, and the ants were born with them. We had only the clothes we constructed from the forest, and the ants were born with a thick shell. We fled to the only place we could, the only place that hadn't been overrun by the ants in their eternal and unyielding conquest: The Place Beyond the Grass.
So our journey began. The refugees of a once proud people, scattered to the winds and the whims of the Place Beyond the Grass.
So many of our group were not prepared for the journey. We were uprooted; blades of grass torn from their ancestral homes. I recall being in the Place Beyond the Grass for nearly 5 days, the black stone burning our feet during the day and pressing uncomfortably into our backs during the night. Of the thirty odd survivors, about half fell from sunstroke or dehydration. The dew was not plentiful as it was in the humid climes of the forest. Our only source of food and water were occasional weeds which erupted from cracks in the stone beneath us, small oases in the great black desert. Several of our people could travel no longer, the pain and suffering of the journey overtaking their wills just as the ants had overrun our homes. I still think about them, as I lay in bed at night, staring at the great stars above. What became of them?
On the second day, we sighted the Pillars.
Huge, monolithic structures, made from colossal fragments of obsidian that had been shaped into harsh geometric shapes. Even from where we saw them, ten thousand days of travel away, the structures seemed to hold the sky aloft. If we were in the grass, this would have no doubt sparked debate among our tribe's wise men. In The Place Beyond the Grass, words were cheap. Even our loudest and boldest troublemakers were stunned and exhausted into a melancholic silence which rivaled the stone beneath our feet in its hostility.
On the fourth day, we saw the Lights, columns of shiny stone that stretched high into the air before bending into an arch.
At the end of the arches a bulb of quartz was attached. We marveled at the objects during the day, wondering at their purpose. That night, we were stunned when the quartz bulb came to life, illuminating our faces and the stone around us. The light was purple, and we at once feared we had been caught in the trap of some mystical creature from the wastes. We quickly packed our meager belongings and travelled on, leaving the Lights and their alluring glow behind.
On the fifth day, we found the Grass again, or at least something akin to the green forests we once knew. The grass here was a different shape, but largely seemed to function the same as before. We fell to our knees. Had we truly survived The Place Beyond the Grass?
In time, we found others. The inhabitants of this forest. They looked like us, and their buildings and tools were similar. They wore pieces of a black gum under their feet, from a great ore they call the Mish Ellen, a massive shiny disc surrounded by the black gum. Their tools were made from shards of the same shiny stone the Lights were cast from, although they know nothing of the magical glowing quartz at the tip of the Lights. We shared with them the story of our journey, and their faces darkened. They too, had fought with ants. Great beasts colored the same as our blood. Their weapons were able to pierce their hide, though, so the ants kept their distance. They welcomed us into their home with open arms, and for that we will be forever grateful.
~
But that story was a lifetime ago, and now I am an old man, rendered frail by the passage of time. I took the role of a storyteller, a vocation I was all too happy to fulfill for our village. The time I spent in the Place Beyond the Grass is my most popular tale, although I have other grounded tales which serve as well.
I know my time is limited, now more so than ever, so I have resolved to write down my tales, so that our children, and their children's children, may learn something of the Place Beyond the Grass. While the great Mish Ellen gives us many things, it is not an infinite resource. Even now, we must battle the blood ants in order to gather the black gum, and the shiny stone we gather is becoming tainted by the blood ants, slowly becoming red and brittle.
I hope that these trials are only small hurdles our village can overcome. I fear that they are not.
It is my dying wish to travel once again through that harsh stone waste, yet I cannot fathom why. Should fortune favor me, I may even be able to reach the foot of the Pillars. I can only pray that my village need not follow me into the Place Beyond the Grass. | "It's toying with us!" Dayal squealed in his typical pitch.
"I thought journalists had spines, war zones, and all that." The mercenary checked the wrist ropes were right before he started slowly sharpening his hooks again the whetstone back of the handles.
The metal sang as another batting blow struck down on the hull of the transport, then two more. The massive vehicle listed before the port treads caught soil again.
"She'll hold," the seedy Southeind captain said, spitting gar to the foredeck as emphasis. "She's ridden through bigger beasts than that."
The mercenary chuckled. "Trying to convince him or yourself? Felinaurs aren't the biggest out there but they're tenacious and they love small targets."
"There's a reason these wilds aren't explored. I told you this would happen. Look at that thing on the monitor. It's the size of an apartment complex!" Dayal was pacing, doing little more than getting in the way.
The mercenary sheathed his hooks just before another blow knocked the transport sideways with a groaning snap of cables. He notched his feet under the rungs of the ladder and let himself swing as the recording equipment flew all around them.
"Do something! You said this hunk of junk could make it to the city! No problem you said!" Dayal screamed as he slammed against the wall, covered now in whatever colorful drink he had been sipping. "Is this what you call no problem!"
The captain's leg was bending the wrong way but he was still trying to claw his way back to the wheel. "She's self-righting, just hold onto something while I level her!"
The mercenary looked at the monitor, expressions iced. Two long paws filled the screen. Rapid scraping blows hammered into the hull. He saw a rather important-looking piece go flying on the monitor.
"It's gutting! The ship's lost!" the researcher yelled, crawling from the other room. Her face was quickly gushing blood from a wide gash just above her eye.
The hull dented in. Two long claws tented before tearing through the fifth hair steel armor. With a rip, the entire roof of the ship flew off. The rainstorm was relentless as the thunder screamed outside. The torrent ran droplets down the wide muscled leg of the Felinaur stretching up and out of sight. The mercenary caught a look at the leviathan's face, contorted back in a hunter's rage.
He steeled himself as he whipped out his hooks with a practiced spin. He started running towards the hole, timing his jump just as the foot the size of a car approached again.
"What the hell is he doing!?" Dayal asked behind him. There was no time to answer.
The beast hissed like a dragon as the mercenary launched through the air. Both blades sunk deep and easy into the coarse fur. He began climbing. If he could reach the head, he could kill it.
Just as he was resinking the left hook, the beast howled, loud as artillery fire. The wind blasted all around him as the Felinaur bolted. Each stride of the massive animal was a teeth-shaking slam. White knuckled on the handles, he was still slipping. He needed at least upon its back.
He risked a look back. He couldn't see the transport through the storm. The jungle was thick but the felinaur bounded at a full sprint.
"Where we headed, Jack?" The mercenary felt a filling coming loose as he swung again. He slowly climbed up the orange patch of fur. He could see a hole ahead of the beast's path. It looked to be carved in impossibly large concrete.
"Shit," was all he managed before the felinaur squeezed through the hole, knocking the mercenary against the side. He fell for what felt like minutes before landing in a raging river.
He frantically swam to the surface as he played for his life jacket strap, rapidly extending air to keep him up.
The storm cleared just as the river took him to a bright area, mostly free of the canopy.
He started up and up to what he thought was a tree, disappearing into the sky. It was covered in trees twisting around it but it was a building, a skyscraper of the old world just as the researcher had promised.
He looked around to see the uneven ground where each building just as wide. The lost city of giants sprawled out in all directions. He had lost his hooks, his supplies, his flares. He began ripping his shirt and wrapping the cut on his leg. Maybe he could fashion a spear?
He had stumbled on the legend of the old world, but he'd be damned if he was going to die here.
/r/surinical | 2021-06-30T10:33:16 | 2021-06-30T09:43:59 | 456 | 29 |
[WP] PVP has been turned off for years. Everyone now knows, that no blade can pierce the skin with the INTENT to kill or harm. You are at the doctor getting a shot when the needle bends upon touching your upper arm... | Many ancient scholars speculated that *if* the universe is a computer program, life should never, under any circumstances, know this fact, for *if* it ever figured it out, modern civilization would instantly crumble. Of course, those scholars never went a step ahead to see the ultimate truth; That *if* the universe is a computer program, the only reasonable explanation for its existence would be that it is a videogame. This is why, when Alexander Wilfery conquered the world as the first emperor of a unified humanity, the first thing he did was turn off the PvP. No more murder, no more wars, and no more boxing matches, because honestly, those *'matches'* were only rigged events organized for the singular purpose of betting.
Alexander Wilfery was a polarizing figure on Earth... to say the least. Some would argue that he was a tyrant, imposing his will unto humanity without the right to do so. Others would argue that being the only human with access to the source code technically granted him the right to do as he pleased. A third, small, but vocal group of people would say:
"Yes, okay, he can do whatever he wants, but why'd he have to take our boxing?"
His actions definitely influenced history for centuries to come, shifting the economy from one of service labor to a flourishing utopia of science and arts. One profession in particular, assassination, thrived in this new world due to its rare and difficult nature. Turning off the PvP didn't make humans immortal, only harder to kill. Now, instead of letting the thrilling anticipation of murder overtake them, assassins had to be trained from birth to repress their intent. Fortunately for the old families that already practiced the art of killing, this came extremely easy, since they already implemented this in their training. Unfortunately for Alexander Wilfery, the nurse administering his flu-shot was one of said assassins.
Sitting atop the doctor's table, Alexander slouched and pouted. He wasn't afraid of shots, he just wasn't a fan of them. His hands weren't shaking out of nervousness, they were just shaking out of exasperation... or boredom. When the nurse flicked the needle with her finger, he didn't gulp because the purple liquid seemed menacing, he gulped because his throat was dry.
"Lord Emperor..." said the nurse, "you seem on edge right now. Is something bothering you?"
"N-no, I'm just stressed from all the things I have to do this afternoon." He extended his arm. "Please, lets get on with this."
"As you wish, my lord."
The nurse grabbed Alexander's wrist and placed the needle on his skin, right before Alexander squealed and pulled his arm away. The woman's eyes widened with fear, backing away from the Emperor a few steps. She then said:
"Did I do something wrong?!? How did you kno-"
"No, no!" Alexander waved his hands in denial. "Forgive me, nurse, it was instinct. You didn't say you were inserting the needle, so it startled me."
The nurse fixed her shirt and said:
"Okay, Lord Emperor. This time, I'll warn you right before I do it."
Alexander nodded and the nurse grabbed his arm again. She then moved the needle slowly towards his vein, warning him once it was near, only to have Alexander push her away. The nurse's mouth gaped open, staring at the needle in her hand and back at a sheepish Alexander Wilfery.
"Listen," said Alexander, "you're gonna have to stab me with it, okay?"
"Oka- wait, what?"
"You'll have to force the shot unto me. My rational mind knows it can't harm me, but my body just won't let it enter. I'm sorry, I know this is strange, but can you oblige this strange request?"
The nurse grinned and dashed at Alexander, who dodged her by rolling away. She then leaped at him, doing a stabbing motion with the syringe five times, though Alexander evaded all of them fluidly. The nurse, breathing heavily, finally wrestled Alexander to the ground and, laughing maniacally, manged to connect with the needle. Afterwards, her laughter faded into a worried sigh. The needle was bent. It didn't pierce Alexander's skin. The Emperor quickly called for his guards, who flooded the room before the assassin could get away. Restraining her from behind, they inspected her and found a golden necklace of two fighting gloves.
"The Boxing Federation..." said Alexander. "So they finally made their move, huh?"
From this point on, assassination attempts on Alexander's life would become a rare occurrence. Everyone thought he was an omnipotent being, capable of sensing even the slightest of intents. His rule would go on for centuries, and his empire would last for thousands of years more. Of course, no one would dare to think that all of this fame only came to him because of his crippling fear of needles.
-------------------------------------
> If you enjoyed this, you can check out more of my stories over at /r/WeirdEmoKidStories! | "Are you ready?" The nurse's voice was always kind, but one could hear the deep concern buried beneath the kindness. Kyle nodded his head, his heart pounding in his chest, a tear racing from his eye to his chin and onto the silvery blue tile floor.
"*Please,*" Kyle begged silently. "*Please let it work this time.*". He felt an alcohol swab against his arm, focused on the sensation of the cool liquid against his warm skin. Thinking about anything other than the matter at hand was a comfort to his presently racing heart. The nurse exhaled apprehensively and thrust the needle toward his arm. It collided against his skin as though it had just been jabbed into a steel slab, giving way and bending with a loud *TING*. Kyle dropped his head to his chest and exhaled harshly, fighting as utter hopelessness resumed it's place in his mind.
"I'm so sorry, Kyle. I'll go get the doctor." The nurse pursed her lips together, marking her helpless compassion, and quickly exited the room. His heart sank into his stomach, taking with it any hope, and he screamed. It was the kind of scream you hear from a parent who has lost a child, or a husband who has been left behind in death by a wife. A scream of grief. It was all he could do. No comprehensible words would express the anguish he felt as he picked up the syringe with its bent needle and threw it against the wall. The tip of the needle stuck into the drywall with the force. A cosmic joke, Kyle decided, as he stared at the thing with deep loathing.
Feet pattered down the hall toward the room and the doctor entered. "Kyle, I'm sorry. We've tried everything. Poisons you throw back up. Blades can't penetrate your skin. Asphyxia did nothing. I'm afraid the PVP block has completely eliminated our ability to manage this in any way except natural death." At this point, Kyle was numb. Staring at the silvery blue floor once again, a tiny glass pool of tears accumulating beneath his down -turned face.
It had been ten weeks since the Anti-PVP technology had been released and irreversibly activiated. Ten weeks since they discovered that he had aggressive lung cancer. Ten weeks since they realized that chemotherapy, due to its nature as a killer of abnormal human cells, would no longer be effective as a treatment. The disease had begun to steal away his life essence at week two. The pain was unbearable, sometimes rendering him unconscious, which had become a welcome relief. The gagging and vomiting began at week six. Now, at week 10, it felt as though each breath brought with it a thousand needles, stabbing into his lungs and chest. At this point, he wished nothing more than to end the suffering.
Kyle slipped off the table and into the wheelchair. The nurse pushed him back to his room, helped him into bed, and stole away with a tearful apologetic glance. The room fell silent except for the rhythmic sounds of the oncology department going about business as usual.
Kyle placed an earbud firmly into each ear as he gazed at the photo of his wife on his night stand. His memories stole away with his consciousness as he recalled the shape of her body as it lay on the sidewalk, surrounded by chalk and yellow tape, the crimson of her life flowing in a tiny river in the cracks between the cement squares. They caught the mugger who had shot her. He was in prison for life, but the injustice of him still breathing and his wife lying motionless in the street had ignited within Kyle a fire of justice. He couldn't allow people to keep hurting each other. Not after that. How was he supposed to know that his Anti-PVP serum would be irreversible? He didn't think of the implications of his research until it was undeniably too late. Grief can do that to a person.
A familiar metallic and mechanical click pulled him back to reality, followed quickly by a bang and a scream from the next room. The same scream Kyle had screamed the night Lisa lay on the sidewalk. The same scream he had groaned with another failed injection.
Kyle turned up the volume in his ear buds, the rhythm and screams of the oncology ward fading into the background. | 2016-08-31T08:02:52 | 2016-08-31T07:53:30 | 334 | 139 |
[WP] A harmless Eldritch god roams Earth to see it’s natural wonders. While traveling, he see humanity screaming and running away from him. Curious as to why, he plucks one from a crowd and brings it up to head level. “Why do you fear me?” He says. | "Well, you're, you know-" the man stuttered incoherently, gesticulating wildly with his hands.
"I'm afraid I don't understand. What do you mean, 'you know'?"
"You know, well, you've got all those strange squiggly bits. And tentacles. And so many eyes. I'm not really sure where to look."
"My prime eye is directly beneath the mouth that looks like a yawning void, not the mouth lined with razor-sharp teeth. If you need to choose somewhere to look, look there."
"Yes, well, I'd rather not look, if it's all the same to you. In fact, I would really rather you put me back down so that I may continue running away, senselessly screaming my lungs out."
"That seems like rather a waste of energy. After all, if I'd wanted to hurt any of you, you certainly all would be dead by now."
"I don't think you understand. You don't need to *intend* any harm. It's part of what you are. I can feel my brains melting as I speak with you right now. In fact, they seem to be oozing out of my ears."
"Human, I don't have any control over what I am. It seems rather *rude* to judge a creature based off of things outside of their control."
\---
/r/theBasiliskWrites | The human's head exploded.
"Holy--yikes!" I shrieked in horror. I set the remaining headless ragdoll down hastily, flicking my fingers.
I looked around. The screaming crowds were drawing away from me now. There was nothing around me but large, shiny rectangular objects, some even taller than I. As I moved, I caught a glimpse of movement near to my side. I turned.
I shrieked again! In the shiny side of the nearest rectangle reposed a gargantuan *thing* so hideous that my mind could not encompass it. My shriek ended suddenly as my head exploded.
A bird flew into the reflective panes shortly afterward and knocked itself crosseyed. | 2022-03-06T05:57:52 | 2022-03-06T03:22:30 | 457 | 99 |
[WP] The aliens have arrived however they are not here for war. Instead after reading our broadcast of the United States Constitution they want to join as the 51 state and have brought a small planetoid into orbit to serve as the 51 state. | "So, what happens if we tell them about the Space treaty that says that no nation can have any territory in space?"
"I don't think they'll react well."
"Best case scenario?"
"An insane amount of applications for residency, the vast majority of which would get turned down because they don't have skills we need."
"They hauled a *Plutoid* here, you think they're unskilled?"
"They hauled a *populated* Plutoid here, I think they have some immensely knowledgeable people that we would accept without hesitation and would probably be our greatest acquisition since Von Braun, but there's millions of them up there that are basically fast food workers. We turn away thousands of human applications every year, now we've got this too? It's going to be bad."
"Okay, and how do they react to that?"
"Who knows. They're aliens, we have no idea what happens then."
"Alright, what's the worst case scenario."
"They de-orbit the planetoid so that it's not in space anymore."
"That sounds incredibly stupid."
"It is. They don't survive that either."
"Seriously though, why even bring that up? This isn't a time for joking. I meant that it sounds incredibly stupid that you would even bring that up."
"...Mr. President, let me be clear here - these people read our constitution and decided to travel *lightyears* with a *planetoid* in tow in order to join us, but did absolutely zero additional research on whether or not they would be allowed to join us, nor even considering that they could simply copy the text of our constitution and implement it themselves. Mr. President, I think these aliens might be idiots."
"Christ. What's our best response?"
"I'm not really sure, Mr. President." | Gaphon looked down at his beloved. Her face was flushed with fever, her eyes a dull, opaque gray.
"It's time to go," he whispered. She responded only by mouthing a few grunts. "They will help you, Leaza," Gaphon told her, "they will make everything better."
The shuttle engines roared to life. Soon they would be out of the cold, heartless civilization of their birth, and into a new world of hope. A world where his beloved's illness would not be ignored because of their poverty; a world where their dark pigments and odd accents would be embraced; a world of love, peace, and equality.
Though the journey would take several weeks, Gaphon would spend the time by Leaza's side, comforting her with the document that promised so much hope. His favorite passages were about everyone being created equal, with unalienable rights to life, liberty, and happiness.
By the time they landed over the area called "Birmingham, Alabama," so chosen for Gaphon's mother Birma, everything would finally be okay. | 2016-06-06T09:11:03 | 2016-06-06T08:55:19 | 133 | 45 |
[WP]You live in a Dystopian world where eye color determines your social class. 20 years later a baby is born with red eyes.
This could be fun it already has implied racial themes, discrimination and anti-meritocracy. Do with it what you will. | "Did you hear, Mrs Rana gave birth last night." Old man Rasputin coughed out.
"Yeah, that's nice." Joy said as perused his eyePad.
"But there's a nasty rumor going around!" Rasputin whispered.The intensity in his voice made Joy look up.
"What rumors?"
"The boy he's.. he's uncharted."
Joy did not know how to process that. Since the culling of the old generations a child born with eye color not falling on the <Purity> Scale was considered an impossibility. An abomination.
"Well so. how off-scale is he? whats his core? How much is the variance" Joy asked, with a curiosity one is endowed with when encountering a repulsive but fascinating tidbit of gossip.
"That's the thing, he's not classified into any of the core color schema like the browns, the blues and such" said Rasputin while licking his lips.
"He something else entirely. A new core color schema "
"Get out off town" Joy replied with disbelief.
The reason for his disbelief was valid.After 10 generations of selective breeding and merciless extermination of any outliers, the population had been conformed to the stereotypes enforced by the Eye-Color classification system. The old doctrine had become the natural law; The blue-eyes were natural leaders, the green-eyes were smart cookies ,the Browns were strong workers and so on.
Each eye color had a purity associated with it. The closer you were to the core or as the priests called it the true Form of your eye group, the higher your social standing within it. Over the years, small margin of the population had been mixed
in a controlled fashion, creating children that inherited traits from multiple groups, but could never develop them to the strength of the Core Group members.Or at least that was the believed theory.
"The boy, and I swear this as true as a Rainbow, has red color eyes" Rasputin hissed.
"Red, what do you mean red?" said Joy.
What did red eyes even look like he wondered.
"Haa. They say the child is demon spawn. He killed his own mother while coming into this world. Drowned in blood that eventually seeped in his eyes." Rasputin took a long puff of his pipe.
"For that baby, the world must be splattered with blood." he added grimly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
'Eyes do not lie'. The words of my father kept echoing in my mind.As I stared into the clear lake into my reflection, a stranger looked back. A red stranger.
In my left hand I gripped the eye-drops I kept in my presence since my birth.
"Remember Axel, 2 drops every night before going to sleep" My father repeatedly reminded me, while gently caressing my hair,
"Or you could lose your eyesight". I had followed that directive. Always. But now father was gone. Disease, others had said. No one saw it coming. Father was always taking care of me, he ended up neglecting himself.
I shook the bottle, trying to squeeze a last drop out of it. It had run out 3 days ago. And no one knew how to make more. But my vision was fine. Maybe I was cured. But I felt strange, something about me felt different. As I continued to stare down into the water I finally realized what it was, mostly because it was literally staring me in the face.
My eyes, they were blood red.
I thought back to the days of being home-schooled by my father. He had spent months educating me on the Chromatic Hierarchy in place. I still remembered his words clearly.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Our society today had evolved due to a self-fulfilling prophecy. A long time ago someone decided to segregate the population based on Eye Color, assigning traits to each group and then breeding the next generation in a way to confirm those beliefs. All of these stereotypes have been integrated our everyday language and activity. People long ago internalized this forced classification and the government certainly strongly discourages 'out of box' behavior."
I had asked what would take to break this cycle, this hierarchy.
His father's eyes had turned very serious as he answered
"An unprecedented agent. Something not part of the system. Something for which people have no biases, negative or positive. To show the populous that the beliefs they held onto are irrational. Due to lack of negative bias, that agent could gather the lower hierarchy on his side. And being outside the system, he would not be tempted to take due advantage of his position,at least until he removes the *bourgeois* "
Father had a strange look in his eyes
"Such a person would be suitably poised to change the world."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The red Eyes kept staring back at me. My eyes. A million thoughts were going through my head. Under the sunset the entire world seemed tinged with red.
And one though kept repeating: 'Eyes do not lie.' And so I finally made a decision.
The world was about to change
| About seven months into the zaftig I hit rock bottom. There were no eggs or rice or bread crumbs. Azure was begging for my milk but my own body was too frail to produce more on top of the demands of the tiny baby already growing inside. Apart from everything our landlord had no problem thank you very much with throwing us out if the rubles were not on his desk by 1600 hours. I would have to do the bad thing.
I woke up at 1300 and gently placed Azure back on the frayed rucksack we shared each night. I rummaged in the hearth for ash and finding some smoothly rubbed it across my eyelids. I caught my reflection in our rain barrel on the way out the door. My thick black eyelashes and dark eyes were illumed by the dusty paste of the ash. You might even think I was one of the mids if it weren't for my tattered blue cloak, brown skin and gapped smile. Not to mention I was barefoot and 8 months pregnant.
The alley way behind our apartment was drafty and smelled like urine and rotten apples and dog shit. I began quickly navigating passage to the main highway. I passed the baker's hut, Ruddy Creek and the clothes line, still damp from the late washings that the Indian women did each night after their husbands returned from the oil wells. I laughed at the thought of it, cleaning clothes? What a waste of time and liniment when rubles could be used for bread and ale. At about half past I reached the Ireland Club. The Ireland was lit red and gold and in its beams across the dirt roadway drugged men and women danced and laughed and smoked. Barmaids came in and out its rusty iron doors with trays of frothy mugs and saucers of orange and blue pills.
Then, a kick. I nearly fainted with excitement. Myron hadn't moved in ages and I was nearly sure he had taken death inside me. He continued to putt putt away against the back of my belly button. I smiled warmly and as I placed my fingers over the zaftig I felt a sharp scraping against my neck and everything went black.
I woke up with a start. I was in a very hot room, tiled white and clean but extremely hot. I feared it was an oven and screamed at the top of my lungs. Myron was not moving at all. I realized I had pissed myself some time before. My hands were swollen and cut, and my shoulders and neck were aching and tender. "Are you ready?" a highpitched and foreign voice called out from a speaker above. "For your sacrifice we have included a 40 pound note. We only ask your utmost discretion and secrecy in regards to this experiment." Flashes of light and pale pink faces and the sounds of grinding and cutting came to mind. I reached for the nape of my neck and felt the stitches. Horror flooded over me. Myron remained docile. Suddenly the heat stopped and the lights faded down. A door opened up and I ran as fast as possible through it into the alley. I ran and ran until I reached Ruddy Creek. I ripped my cloak off and submerged my aching, overheated body in its thickness. I didn't care if I got the disease or any sort of ailment. I needed the cool sludge against my skin. After a moment I ran back to our apartment. IT was still dark out and Azure had not stirred. I reached for her and was so weak I nearly dropped her. My chest heaved and arms shook. I felt dizzy and sat on our cot. Azure tried to nurse and surprisingly my nipple gave way. She drank endlessly and with a slight aggression. When she finally drew back and into her slumber once more, I saw the pool of blood beneath me. My back convulsed and my stomach churned. Myron suddenly began flailing about inside and I knew it was time. I yelped in agony as his tiny head came into view, followed by slight shoulders, a tiny bottom and from first glance all 20 digits. I lifted his soft head and body to face mine. His eyes opened and shone blood red. I grabbed a rag and desperately tried to wash the blood clear. But there was no blood and his eyes were like glittering rubies. I thought of his father and wept. | 2015-08-24T12:57:58 | 2015-08-24T12:04:05 | 51 | 12 |
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